Backlash
by cranapplepye
Summary: Maybe some part of Stiles always knew there would be a price; that one day he would be called to account for the wanton destruction the Nogitsune wrought while wearing his face, but he never expected it to happen quite like this. Waking in unfamiliar surroundings, Stiles finds himself in the hands of someone wronged by the demon who is now looking to him for answers... and revenge.
1. Chapter 1

The first thing Stiles noticed when he started drifting towards wakefulness was that his bedroom smelled funny. Like dust and grass and lawnmower oil. The air was strangely stale and close. _Geez, his Dad was right, he really should clean in here and open a window or something. _He was cold, and there was a dull ache throbbing behind his eyes as if maybe he was coming down with something.

Stiles' eyes blinked open slowly. What he saw didn't make sense. Dark shapes and shadows of unfamiliar objects. A watery ray of sunlight piercing air thick with swirls of dust motes. A row of ancient looking gardening tools hanging on a wall. He pressed his eyes shut and opened them again, hoping to dispel the illusion, but it remained. His vision was strangely blurry, his eyes aching when he tried to focus and igniting the ache in his head to a sharper, more gnawing pain.

Heart starting to speed up, Stiles clenched his eyes shut again, willing the unfamiliar surroundings away with every fiber of his being. _He was in his bed. He was in his bed. He was in his bed! _

But he wasn't... or was he? He peeked one eye open, but the row of unfamiliar tools on the wall continued to mock him unrepentantly. His stomach sank to his toes, knotting in fear. _Not again. Not again. No, no, no! _He thought he was done waking up in strange places he didn't remember going. Done losing time and not being sure what was and wasn't real. The nogitsune had been gone for over a month! _... or had it?_

He shivered, gooseflesh rising painfully along his arms, panic starting to creep up the back of his throat like bile. _What if he had only __**dreamed**__ it? What if defeating and trapping the nogitsune had only been in his mind? An illusion to keep him occupied and under control when in truth he was still trapped in his own head, being used like a puppet by the demon to do God knew what? What if all that he _thought_ he remembered was only another dream inside a dream? _

Stiles' breath caught, fluttering uselessly in his chest as icy talons of fear dug into him like claws. He wished to hell he'd never seen Inception.

_Fingers, fingers, how many fingers did he have? _Stiles' eyes flew open again and he tried to pull his hands in front of him so he could look for extra digits and try to figure out what was real... but he couldn't. He couldn't see his hands, he couldn't move them; they were trapped in something. Stiles wasn't sure exactly what position he'd thought he was in, but all at once he realized that he was somehow already upright or, partially upright, anyway. He was on his knees, cheek resting against something hard, flat and rough, his arms stretched up over his head.

Badly disorientated, his head throbbing as he battled the first, paralyzing fingers of a panic attack, Stiles couldn't make any sense out of the position or why he couldn't move. He thrashed, jerking at his arms and shaking his head as if he could shake off the whole illusion of the room around him. _Wake up, wake up, wake up! Please let this be the dream and not the other. Please, please, please... _

The familiar dig of metal circles biting into his wrists helped ground him a little, giving him a much needed dose of understandable reality to hold onto. _Handcuffs. He was handcuffed._ That's why he couldn't move. He knew what cuffs felt like. He had played with them enough growing up, borrowing his dad's so he and Scott could try to play Houdini, or Batman, or cops and criminal mastermind geniuses. More often than not the games had ended up with one or the other of them getting stuck in awkward and embarrassing predicaments when someone lost the key or got the lock so jammed from amateur attempts to pick it that it didn't work properly anymore. His dad had continually gotten them sets of play cuffs to use, but of course, those weren't as fun as the real thing.

Stiles' fingers traced the familiar outline of metal encircling his wrists, trying to force his hazy mind to work around his fear and assess his situation. He was kneeling on the floor of what looked like some kind of old, dilapidated garden or toolshed. The hulking shapes in the shadows were an ancient lawnmower and stacks of boxes full of mason jars and other detritus. He was facing a thick wooden beam that disappeared into the dirty cement foundation, probably a structural support of some kind. His arms were wrapped around the beam as if he were hugging it, secured together in the back by handcuffs. His questing fingers found what felt like a long, rusty metal spike or spar of some kind between his hands. The sturdy rod disappeared into the beam. It had probably been used to hang things from at some point in the shed's history. Now, it was what was keeping Stiles' hands suspended above him. The chain connecting his wrists was hooked over the rod, keeping Stiles in his current, kneeling position where he was more or less dangling from his shoulders.

With that discovery, Stiles started to become aware of how much his shoulders and knees ached from the position. The beam was too high for him to be able to sit back on his heels; it held him almost fully extended. Wincing, he rolled his shoulders and tried to straighten up enough to take a little of the strain off. He felt both stiff and cold.

Stiles looked down at himself. He was barefoot and in his pajamas, a soft dark blue tee and matching flannel sleep pants. It was too reminiscent of another time, of a different trap and panic started to seep back in. Everything about this felt very real, but then, the basement and animal trap had seemed completely real to him too. It was going to be a long time before he was able to completely trust his senses again, especially if the situation just didn't add up. He struggled to figure out how he could have gotten here, tried to pinpoint the last thing he remembered. It was a strange phenomenon that the harder you tried to think of something, the more jumbled and elusive it could become. The panicky, wild way his thoughts were darting all over the place every time he tried to concentrate wasn't helping either. _He remembered eating dinner with his Dad, going to bed, playing games on his phone into the wee hours of the morning until he finally passed out...then... wait, the doorbell? There was someone at the door? _

Stiles' mind retreated violently from the seemingly innocent memory of walking towards what looked like the front door to his house, his psyche recoiling in knee-jerk fashion from any mental reference to doorways in his dreams. _No, no! Don't look at the door, don't touch the door! Don't, you stupid idiot, don't!_

There was the sound of movement behind Stiles, pulling him back to the moment and he stiffened, every muscle going ridged. He tried to twist around and see who was there, but the cuffs were making him hug the pole too tightly, he couldn't twist enough to see behind his back.

"W-who's there? Who are you? Where am I?" His voice was scratchy and it trembled more than he might have liked.

There wasn't an immediate answer and his already thundering heart flailed harder in his chest. Terror made his head spin and he had to press his eyes shut to keep from being ill.

_Footsteps in the dark. The hiss of that voice that went through him on every level, penetrating his soul, stealing his mind, twisting him into something he would rather die than become... _

Behind clenched eyelids, Stiles got the impression that the being had come around beside him. If he opened his eyes, he would see. Stiles found himself paralyzed, unable to open his eyes, too afraid that he would see a rotting army jacket, a head full of bandages and a hideous shark mouth smiling at him. _Do you want to hear a riddle, Stiles? _

_No, no he didn't. Not ever again. _

Stiles felt physically unable to breathe. He couldn't bear to open his eyes and find his worst fears a reality. He couldn't take it if this had all been just one more illusion when he'd been so sure it was finally over and everyone was safe. His mind _literally_ couldn't take it. The revelation would shatter him. _Maybe that was the whole point._

"What do you want?!" Stiles demanded raggedly, trying not to sob, trying to force himself to open his eyes and face his fears.

"I want a lot of things, Stilinski. Right now it's kind of a tossup between wanting to make you pay for what you've done and getting the truth about why," an angry, male voice spoke from above him. "Let's start with the _why _and go from there."

Stiles' eyes startled open at the sound. He found himself staring at a pair of jean-clad shins and scuffed, worn sneakers. _Not army boots. Not uniform pants._ He didn't know the voice, but it was not the one he feared.

His shoulders sagged, terror ebbing away to leave him shaky and exhausted with relief. Admittedly, the relief was probably more than a bit premature since he was in fact still tied up in the middle of God-knew-where with a rather angry sounding person standing over him saying some highly disturbing and nonsensical things, so... yeah, maybe this wasn't exactly anybody else's idea of a _good _turn of events, but compared to what he'd feared? He'd take this, whatever _this _was.

Either sparked by the voice, or simply unblocked when his panic levels finally dipped somewhere below petrified, Stiles found the rest of the recollection's he'd unconsciously been blocking out before finally coming to him now.

_It was Saturday. Dad was at work. Stiles was sleeping in late. The doorbell woke him up. He stumbled down the stairs in his pajamas to answer. When he opened the door, he had only a momentary impression of someone in sunglasses and a dark jacket or hoodie before he was hit square in the chest with sparking Taser wires. The massive electric charge had dropped him like a rock, sending him convulsing to the floor, then something hard slammed into the side of his head and the world folded in around him. _

Stiles' eyes widened and he craned his neck back, struggling to see the person standing over him. The other man was too close to get a good look from this angle. Stiles was about eye level with the guy's crotch and only able to see his legs, part of his shirt and the underside of his chin. "Hey, you kidnapped me!" he blurted indignantly as the rush of memories finally coalesced into something that thankfully sort of made sense. "What the hell, dude?!"

The man leaned down and punched him in the side, _hard. _

Stiles jerked forward, nearly bashing his own head against the wooden beam a few inches from his face. "Ow! Crap! Was that really necess- ow!" He cringed, trying to pull away but finding nowhere to go as the man punched him in the ribs a second time before moving behind him, and delivering a vicious jab above his kidneys that brought tears of pain to Stiles' eyes and made him clutch desperately at the sides of the post.

"Hey! Hey! Come on, man, at least tell me what you want before you start with the hitting!" Stiles protested, voice tight around the pain. "If you just want a p-punching bag, I recommend the g-gym."

"I told you, I want to know _why. _I want the truth," his kidnapper said harshly. "I want to know what kind of dark, twisted shit you're into and who else is involved."

Stiles swallowed, confused and uneasy about the plethora of possible directions this could be going. "Um... could you maybe be a little more specific and a little less creepy? That's kind of vague."

A hand fisted in his tousled hair and jerked his head back. The edge of something sharp, probably a knife pressed against his throat. Stiles got an upside-down view of his attacker's forehead and a set of bloodshot, murderously intense eyes.

"Six weeks ago, two men in ninja costumes and masks rampaged through Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital, killing four people and wounding twelve. Ringing any bells?"

Stiles swallowed, the motion making the blade bob against his exposed throat. _ Oh yes, it rang a __**lot**__ of bells, all of them sounding like warning klaxons in his head_. Still, Stiles still wasn't entirely sure what this guy was after. "Y-yeah, of course, everybody knows about that. People in the same get-up attacked the Sheriff's office too that night. Totally weird shit, man."

"And that's _all _you know about it?" his captor demanded, pulling back harder on the knife.

Stiles squeaked in protest and tried to lean back as far as his bonds allowed. "I-I don't understand what you're asking!" he lied.

"Don't even try to give me that," the kidnapper pulled the knife away and let go of Stiles' hair, only to smack him hard on the side of the head with an open palm. The harsh clap made Stiles reel sidewise, his ear drum ringing painfully. There was something a little frenetic about the way the man was acting. He didn't seem terribly together.

"I know better. I was _there _that night. I was at the hospital. Those costumed freaks almost _killed me _and they weren't alone. You were there. I _saw _you with them, following the bloody trail they left like they were your personal motherfucking executioners. People were fucking _dying _and you were fucking _smirking _like it was the best show ever you demented piece of shit!" The man kicked him hard in the back of the thigh.

Stiles felt his stomach drop right back to his toes again. _Well, crap. _The nogtisune had done a lot of damage while wearing his face. It was perhaps inevitable that some of it would come back to bite him, but this was definitely not sounding good.

"Everybody talks about the ninjas, nobody talks about _you_," the kidnapper continued. "I thought it was weird _your _picture was never on the news. Even if I'm the only person who noticed you amid the chaos, it's a hospital, you know? They have security cameras. The whole thing had to be on tape. So you know what? I looked into that, and you know what I found out? The police say the security tapes were blank. _Somehow _they got wiped, allegedly before they were confiscated. But you know what else I found? I found a picture of _you _with the Lacrosse team. I found out who you are, and that your father is the Sheriff." The man's voice dripped with venom and disdain. "_Very _convenient, that. I guess that's why the police are covering it all up, huh?"

Stiles felt chilled from more than just the cool weather and poorly insulated structure. The man was both right and wrong. Stiles' father _had _wiped the hospital tapes, because they _did _show someone who looked exactly like Stiles in the company of the rampaging Oni, but it hadn't actually _been _Stiles. They'd known it was possible someone might remember seeing him there, and they had his alibi all worked out... but he had a feeling it wasn't going to go over very well with crazy-eyes, here.

"I mean... ninjas with swords?! Who does that kind of crap? What's the point?!" The man was still ranting. "That's what I want to know. I want to know what the hell it was all about, and who those masked men were. I want to know what's so Goddamn important that so many people could die and everybody just pretends to not know crap! Because somebody has to, stuff like this just doesn't happen!"

Stiles swallowed again, trying to choose his words carefully. "Look, I don't know what to tell you, but you've got the wrong person. Maybe you saw someone who kinda looked like me, but I wasn't anywhere near the hospital that night. I was with friends, there were witnesses, you can ask them –"

Stiles was thrown sideways as an angry fist clubbed the side of his head, showering sparks across his vision. Kicks and blows rained down fast and furious, peppering his head, back, sides and legs in a disordered frenzy that seemed to have no clear plan behind it other than to cause pain. It succeeded.

"Oh, like they wouldn't lie for you? Just like everybody else?" the man shouted. "I _know _what I _saw!_"

Stiles couldn't escape the punishing barrage. He hunched in on himself, elbows trying to protect his head as he leaned as close to the pole as he could, attempting to limit the area of body available for abuse. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and nose, tasting coppery on his tongue.

"No!" his attacker practically screamed. "No more lies! All anybody ever does is lie to me! She told me I'd never have to go back to living in hell holes and having the shit beat out of meand it was _lie. _ They told me she was going to be okay and they _lied! _Everybody fucking _lies _and I'm _sick of it!_"

The rant wasn't making much sense, but there was so much raw emotion in it that Stiles physically shrank away from the force of the rage being directed at him. Bound as he was, there wasn't much of anywhere he could go. His eyes widened, gut tightening when he saw his attacker snatch a wooden baseball bat from somewhere on the floor of the shed. Whether he'd brought it with him, or it was part of the general shed debris, Stiles didn't know, but the guy held it like he knew how to use it, like he _intended _to use it. Despite his own mixed experiences with the reliability of such a weapon, Stiles knew that it would break most of _his_ relatively fragile human bones just fine if applied with enough force.

"Don't you _dare _lie to me again,"the man raged, pressing the end of the bat threateningly against the back of Stiles' head. In this position, one good swing would fracture his skull easily. "I will fucking make you pay."

Stiles felt like his mouth was suddenly full of ash. This guy was 31 flavors of crazy and the thought that he could in fact die here felt suddenly very real and possible. He didn't wantto die, not now, not like this. He had been willing to die not so long ago if it had been the only way to put an end to things and maybe there was a part of him that couldn't help wondering how much better it might have been for everyone else if he had. Especially when he saw the pain in Scott's eyes or the way Lydia sometimes brushed her fingers across Allison's locker when she thought no one was looking.

However, Stiles was practical too. He knew there was no guarantee that his death actually would have changed anything. Even if Melissa and Rafael McCall hadn't found him that night in the preserve and he'd succeeded in his half conscious effort to kill himself and the thing taking over his mind, the nogitsune could have just taken a new host or reanimated his corpse as Stiles had since learned it had done to its previous host. The logical part of his mind knew that it did no good trying to weigh impossible questions like whether his dying could have saved Allison, and whether it might have devastated fewer people to lose him instead, although that didn't mean he never thought about it.

So maybe... _maybe_ he would have at least considered trading places with Allison if it would bring her and the others back, if it could undo all the evil the nogitsune had used his hands to work. But this? Hell no. This was just pointless. Sure, he felt guilty as sin about everything that had happened, but he didn't want to pay with his life for the things the demon had done. It wasn't fair. He may not be wholly innocent, but neither was he guilty in the way crazy-eyes thought he was.

"I'm not lying!" Stiles protested vehemently, craning his neck around hard in a futile effort to see something more than the legs of his attacker's jeans. "L-look, you're right, I think the whole thing is totally weird and suspicious as hell too, but it wasn't me! You're making a mistake, I _swear!" _It was as close to the truth as Stiles could get, the only story he had to stick with. This man already thought he was lying, if he started attempting to explain about Oni and kitsune and werewolves and Japanese demons, that would _really _increase his believability.

His assailant was not mollified; he seemed even more enraged by the denials. Grabbing the hair on the back of Stiles' scalp, he slammed the teen's head against the solid wooden beam to which he was bound. Pain exploded through Stiles' skull again, flashing in bright pulses of light behind his eyes and ringing like the whine of microphone feedback in his ears. A little more blood trickled from the corner of his nose, although thankfully the sturdier, flatter area of his forehead had absorbed more of the blow than his face. It throbbed like it was probably going to bruise spectacularly, if he lived that long.

Now was probably not a great time to suddenly be thinking about the different ways he'd read that pathologists determined which injuries were antemortem and which were peri, but naturally, that's exactly where his mind went, and, seriously, fuck his mind sometimes.

Dazed from the blow, it took a moment for Stiles to understand the words being hissed by his ear. It took only a moment longer to register the frightening sight of the fat end of baseball bat resting meaningfully against his right elbow. "You a righty or a lefty, Stilinski? Which one do you think I should start with?"

Stiles' gut lurched like he was barreling into the initial plunge of a rollercoaster. Ironically, this threat terrified him even more than the slightly less tangible fear of death. A good whack or two at that angle would completely shatter his elbow joint, and once they started going down that road... Stiles trembled, feeling physically ill with dread. He twisted his arms desperately against the cuffs, but all it got him was more bruises and abrasions around his already sore wrists. "No, please don't, please don't, please don't!" he begged, tears rising unbidden to his eyes. The bat moved outward and he hunched, curling into himself as much as he could, but he could neither protect himself nor move away. The helplessness fueled his fear. It was like being a prisoner in his own body again and that was still too recent a wound.

"Then you _tell_ me. You tell me who those men were and what the hell you were doing! You _tell _me! You fucking _tell_ me why she had to die! I deserve to know that much don't I? All she ever did was help people!_ Why did she have to die?!_" It wasn't just anger in the voice; it was pain – a universe of soul shattering pain leaking through the places where the tone cracked and broke.

Something inside Stiles turned to ice, the surface fracturing painfully. He didn't need to understand the question to understand the emotions behind it. He had no truth he could offer that would be believed and faced with the raw agony in that question he couldn't even bring himself to try to come up with a convincing lie. "I'm sorry," he whispered raggedly instead, the tears stinging his eyes escaping down his cheeks as he ducked his head. "I'm sorry. If I could undo everything that happened I would. You have no fucking idea how much I would... Please... Oh God! Please, no! No, no, no!" His voice rose and cracked in panic, body tightening and hunching against the impending blow as the bat swung out and then viciously back in again.


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles felt a tremendous jar that shook the whole beam he was bound around and nearly bit through his lower lip stifling a scream. Around the panic whiting out his brain, it took him several long, _long _moments before he realized that the shattering pain he had been expecting was failing to materialize.

He hadn't realized he'd clenched his eyes shut until they sprung open and he found himself staring up at a fresh, deeply chipped dent in the side of the wooden beam just above his hands. The bat had hit the pole, not his body.

His lungs weren't quite working right and Stiles struggled dizzily for air as he tried to understand what had just happened. Had the guy missed? Was he trying to psyche him out? Stiles flinched at another flash of swift movement in his periphery. It was the bat, but once again it hit only the post above him. The force of the blow exposed pale raw wood beneath the weathered surface, dislodging some splinters that peppered his cheek and hands, but nothing worse. The kidnapper hit the pole again and again with frenzied motions, screaming... no... _sobbing _in rage as if the sturdy old wood were his mortal enemy. The worn, aging bat finally shattered under the strain, spraying Stiles with more biting debris and sending the other man spinning away in a stumble that ended up with him falling flat on his ass. The kidnapper stayed there, blood oozing unheeded between his fingers as he shoved the heels of his palms into his eyes, leaning over his knees.

It was the first time Stiles had gotten a good look at the other man and suddenly, he realized the _man_ was really no more than a boy. No older than himself, maybe even a little younger. Dressed in jeans and a hoodie, the kid had long, floppy brown hair that reminded Stiles of the way Scott used to wear his hair when they were in junior high.

"Goddamn it!" the unknown boy raged, looking up at Stiles with venom and hatred and tears. "Goddamn it I should break every bone in your fucking body, I should!"

_But he couldn't,_ Stiles suddenly realized. Whatever he'd come here thinking he was prepared to do, the young man was apparently discovering that willfully maiming another human being in this manner wasn't one of them. Stiles' aching body gave proof to the fact that the boy wasn't afraid to hurt him, but there seemed to be some lines he wasn't as comfortable crossing as perhaps he'd thought he was. At least, not yet. It wasn't much, but Stiles would take what he could get.

"I-I'd kind of rather you didn't," Stiles managed to say, mouth working around the utter lack of saliva that made his tongue feel tacky and thick. He sniffed, wishing he could wipe his eyes. He realized he was trembling all over. "Who... who did you lose?" he added in a softer whisper. He knew he probably shouldn't ask, but staying silent would never be his strong suit.

The kid was still glaring at him. "My mom," he spat.

Stiles flinched visibly, momentarily pressing his eyes shut. "She was a doctor? At the hospital?" he asked in a soft, faintly lost sounding whisper. The question sprang as much from a masochistic need to know more as from a desire to try to engage his captor in a non-violent dialogue.

"Anesthesiologist," the boy corrected, sniffing. "She was the only person who ever gave a crap about me. When she and Phil took me in, I thought they'd be self-absorbed jerks like all the other foster homes, but they... she... they were different. She didn't even send me back when Phil had a heart attack. S-she actually fought to keep me on her own, can you beat it? She said I w-was family and I'd never have to g-go back to _that. _ But now... now she's dead." The story spilled out of the young man like it had been too long contained, flooding out in a rush of raw sound and emotion that was both desolate and furious.

He pushed to his feet, starting to pace. "She was just getting off shift that night, I was waiting for her. It was just... a normal evening, then everything went _crazy. _People were running and screaming and she ... she pushed me behind her when that _thing _came at us. That's why she got hurt. That's why she got cut to hell. She was bleeding _so much._" The boy looked at his hands, as if they were still covered in the ghost of crimson. "I tried," he croaked. "She told me to run b-but I wouldn't. I tried to stop the bleeding but it kept coming so fast... and that's when I saw you. Do you remember that?" the boy hissed, his mood abruptly vacillating from desolate back to murderous.

"You fucking looked at us and _smiled. _Like we were so fucking _amusing. _Like her dying was _funny._" The boy punctuated each sentence by kicking Stiles' legs viciously.

Stiles pressed his forehead against the post, biting his lips. He hated that he understood quite clearly exactly how much the nogitsune would have savored the pain and terror rolling off the boy kneeling in his mother's blood and trying so desperately to save her. He'd experienced the demon's absolute joy in the suffering of others from the inside. He knew what it felt like to shiver in near orgasmic delight while almost killing your best friend and that was an understanding he'd have to live with for the rest of his life. He gave his head a little shake. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "That's horrible, but I didn't..."

The boy slammed his head against the beam again, leaving Stiles reeling and retching, the pain in his head making him nauseas.

"She didn't die right away," the kid pressed on, seeming to feel the need to finish his story, to make the person he held responsible for his pain understand it. "They _said_ they'd fixed her up, they said she was recovering, but then she got an infection, and something went wrong and they had to operate again, and again!" His voice crew hoarser as his pitch wound higher. "She was in surgery again for hours yesterday, and then... then the fucking lying doctor came out and I just... I knew. I knew even before I saw Aunt Trudy start crying. I knew she was gone. I knew."

The youthful kidnapper was agitated and jittery, pacing relentlessly again. He kicked a crumpled can and it skittered across the floor. Through wavering vision, Stiles noticed it was an energy drink can, and it looked fresher than most of the dusty contents of the shed. There were several others scattered about as well.

"You... you haven't slept since then, have you?" Stiles murmured, recognizing the signs. He didn't get an answer, but would have laid money that he was right. The kid was running on stimulants, grief and rage. It was a bad combination for Stiles, given his vulnerable position.

"Look, um..." Stiles hesitated. "Do you have a name? I, uh, it's awkward to keep calling you _kidnapper_ _dude_ in my head."

The young man glared at him. "Cody," he replied tersely, regarding Stiles suspiciously as if he expected him to be able to do something diabolical with just his name.

"Look, Cody, you've been through some awful shit. Just... just take a minute to breathe, okay? I'm... uh," he glanced up towards where his hands were cuffed. "I'm not going anywhere, clearly, so, you know, maybe you should like, get something to eat or take a nap; think through what you're trying to do here and come at it with a clear head?" Stiles suggested. Not that he particularly wanted to be left hanging like this for any length of time, but Cody was way too on edge. He was making dangerous and not terribly logical decisions and he was likely to do something they were both going to regret, or at least, Stiles was pretty sure _he _would.

"You better start taking this seriously right now, fucker," Cody growled, scowling and grabbing the back of Stiles' head again. "Don't you start thinking I'm some pansy ass wuss or nothing, because I am seriously going to fuck you up."

Stiles winced, tensing his neck muscles and resisting Cody's grip, his head already throbbing like mad and his vision double from all the abuse he'd been taking. "Ah! Hey! I-I am, okay? I'm taking this totally seriously and you're totally scary and terrifying and oh my God, my head is killing me can you please not do that anymore?"

Cody ignored him, slamming his head into the post again despite Stiles' efforts to fight him.

"Fuck..." Stiles groaned, his head ringing like it a tuning fork that had been struck too hard. "Fuck! Cody, I'm not going to be any good to you if you beat me unconscious or scramble my brains too much for me to be coherent," he protested urgently when Cody yanked his head back as if to do it again.

Cody growled but dropped his head. Stiles let it loll forward, pressing his forehead against the post and closing his eyes, struggling not to throw up.

"Well you're not being much good to me right now," Cody pointed out angrily, pacing again. It was clear he wasn't entirely sure how to go about extracting the information he wanted other than the vague notion of somehow beating it out of the other boy. For that matter it wasn't terribly clear whether Cody was really all that focused on getting answers, or if he was just as interested in simply punishing his captive and venting. Stiles didn't get the impression the other boy had thought this whole plan through very well.

"Tell me who those other guys were, tell me _why!_" the boy demanded. "Make me understand or I'm going to kill you." Stiles felt cool, sharp-edged metal against his temple. He looked up to see what looked like a gun pressing against the side of his head.

"Cody... I can't tell you what you want to know. I don't have answers!" Stiles pleaded, even though he knew it was useless. He was tempted to just make up some story to mollify the other boy in the hopes that would end this, but he could tell it wouldn't really matter. Cody _said _he wanted to know what happened, but his real question was one that Stiles couldn't answer, not even if he were able to tell the truth.

"Yes you do! You're the only one that does!" Cody shot back, the gun sliding further forward along Stiles' forehead in his agitation.

The angle gave Stiles a better view, although it was still hard to see that close up. He squinted nervously at the gun, a small frown pulling across his features. There was something... not right about it. Stiles had never been particularly interested in guns, but he'd grown up in the law enforcement community and had seen plenty of people handling them in real life.

"Hey, your gun's not real," Stiles blurted as he figured it out. It was only a well painted airsoft pistol with the requisite orange cap pried off. Stiles had played both paintball and airsoft with Scott on more than one occasion growing up and he knew the difference. The pistol probably looked real enough at a distance, but up close Stiles could tell what it actually was. In hindsight however, he probably _shouldn't _have pointed that out, because Cody hit him with it pretty hard upside the head and fake though it may be, the gun was in fact made out of metal and realistically weighted.

The world spun. Stiles wobbled, hugging the pole for some sense of direction and balance. The next thing he was aware of, the knife was at his throat again instead. Apparently, Cody had packed a full complement of kidnap and intimidation tools, even if he hadn't been able, or perhaps had time, to get his hands on a real gun.

"Maybe not, but _this _is," Cody hissed, pulling back harshly, and drawing a line of blood across Stiles' throat. "I _am _gonna kill you."

"Whoa! Whoa! Hey, hey, come on, think about what you're doing," Stiles reasoned in urgent, slightly strangled tones. "Even if I'm everything you think I am; you don't want to throw your life away over me, do you? Trust me, dude, I'm totally not worth it. Totally, like, at _all._"

"Why the hell not?" Cody said with a dark chuckle. "What _life? _ I don't have a life anymore. This is all that matters now, don't you get it? I'm not going back. I _can't. _I _won't. _I won't ever go back to that. So just quit fucking stalling! TELL. ME." he hissed in Stiles' ear, making a painful series of shallow cuts across the front of his throat that spilled blood down to stain his shirt. The cuts weren't serious, but they hurt and held the half-way promise of worse to come. Stiles found himself battling panic again.

"Cody, I can't tell you why your Mom had to die, no one can!" He protested, starting to get nearly as angry as he was afraid, the combination of his anxiety and Cody's manic behavior serving to saw on his very last nerve. "Look, I understand that you're hurting, you want it all to make sense, but sometimes... sometimes it just _doesn't, _okay? There's nothing I can tell you that will make it any different. Sometimes life is just awful and stupid and I'm sorry about what you've been through, really I am, but that's just the way it is. It sucks, I know, we all go through crap, trust me!"

"Don't act like you know what I've been through, or that you and I are anything alike, don't you _dare._" Cody's hands were shaking so he could hardly hold the knife. He fumbled and dropped it, he caught it by the blade, cutting himself and swearing before angrily flinging the offending object across the room in a fit of pique.

Stiles flinched. The unreasoning, unpredictable and decidedly unstable nature of his captor's mood and actions was highly disturbing to say the least. It was like being in the middle of a storm and not knowing which way the wind was going to blow next. "Cody..."

"No! Shut up!" The boy screamed, rounding on him. "_Life just sucks, so stop being a big baby about it, _huh? Well you know what, screw you! You think you understand? You understand _shit._" Cody grabbed the hem of his hoodie and undershirt and dragged it up, revealing his midriff. He turned so that Stiles could see the patterns of scars across his body. Long, pale marks cut like slashes across his back and side while the ghostly remainder of cigarette burns dotted his abdomen, disappearing beneath the waistband of his pants.

"Pretty, huh?" Cody mocked himself with disgust. "What do you know about pain, Stilinski? What do you know about being kept in a basement and being starved and beaten for days because you didn't want to blow your guardian's dealer so he could get some free smack? How about having the older boys beat the shit out of you and then being punished for ruining more clothing because you're oh-so-expensive to keep? Huh? Tell me what you know about _that._"

Stiles said nothing. He felt sick for what the scars represented, for the pain the other boy had been through. Cody was scaring the bejesus out of him, but he truly did feel bad for him. A tragic past did not excuse what was happening in the present, but still, no one should be hurt like that, _ever_.

"Yeah. I didn't think so," Cody said disdainfully, dropping his shirt and smoothing it self-consciously back into place. "You don't understand... but you know what? You _will._" A dark, unpleasant glitter burned behind the wild, bloodshot eyes.

Stiles got the sinking feeling that Cody had just come up with some kind of plan and that he wasn't going to like it at all.

"You took away the one good thing that ever happened to me. The _one _thing!" Cody continued to seethe venomously as he started agitatedly looking about the shed, his gaze darting here and there as if searching for something. "I'll show you. I'll show you..."

_Nooope, _Stiles didn't like the sound of that one little bit. Cody seemed pretty screwed up. He was possibly having some kind of breakdown and he'd fixated on Stiles, or rather, the memory of the nogitsune using Stiles' form, as the epitome of everything that was wrong in his life, of everyone who had ever been senselessly cruel to him. The boy wanted to punish life for what it had done to him, but all he had in reach was Stiles. _Crap. _

"Um... you don't have to? It's okay, really, I-I'm more of a _tell _than _show _kind of guy myself," Stiles babbled nervously. "Telling is really pretty underrated, you know?" He twisted his hands, fingers searching his bonds for weaknesses yet again even though he already knew it was futile.

Cody ignored him, appearing to find what he was looking for, or at least something that would serve his purposes. Rummaging in one of the dirty old boxes he came up with a tangle of extension cords. There were some thick, round, dark green ones made for outdoors and some thinner, ribbed, brown ones made for indoor use. Cody picked one of the indoor cords and impatiently tugged and yanked until he'd unwound it from the others and wrangled it free.

The cord was relatively long and Cody doubled it over twice in his grip before it was the length he wanted, both of the plug ends held up high by his hand and the long loops of coil dangling free. He moved behind Stiles, who twisted his head, straining to keep the other boy in his line of sight and see what he was doing. Given the scars Cody had shown him and the things he'd said, Stiles had a dreadful feeling he knew where this was going.

Cody yanked Stiles' t-shirt up his back, pushing the bottom hem through the top of the neck hole and tugging hard so that it all bunched up under his armpits, leaving most of his back exposed. Then he shoved Stiles' loose pajama pants down to his knees. Stiles squawked indignantly in protest. He wasn't wearing underwear beneath his pajamas and the move left him utterly exposed to the cold room.

"Whoa! Hey! Uh, any way we can do whatever awful thing you're planning on doing with my pants _on?_" he tried a bit desperately, shivers of cold and apprehension shuddering through him as he twisted his wrists in the cuffs.

In answer, Cody struck him hard across the back with the doubled up extension cord coils.

Stiles gave a surprised yelp of pain because that hurt a lot more than it seemed like it should. Cody hit him again on his back, then several more times in quick succession on his butt and thighs. Stiles bit his lips against the pain, whimpering in his throat as the blows fell. He'd guessed the other boy meant to whip him since he'd come up with the cords, but found himself wholly unprepared for what it felt like. He supposed it probably wasn't as dangerous as being pummeled with fists and feet or worse, since there was less chance of breaking bones or rupturing internal organs, but the level of pain relative to the level of force being applied was shockingly high. His naked skin had no protection from the smarting, stinging burn of the blows and maybe he was being a total wuss, but each strike left him gasping.

"C-Cody, enough man, come on!" Twisting his wrists more urgently as the pain built, Stiles tried to see how far out the peg he was hooked on extended. Could he find the end of it and slip off? Unfortunately, it didn't seem so; the metal rod the chain was hooked over seemed to be too long, longer than his arms could reach from his position.

"I get, okay, I get it! People have been douches to you, you've been hurt, like, _a lot,_ nobody understands and you're angry a-and hurting and ... _oh crap that hurts!" _Stiles squirmed against the pole, shimmying and shifting on his knees, trying to find some position that got him further away from the searing lashes raining down upon his exposed skin, but there was no escape. The double loops of the cord raised two red lines across his pale, freckled skin each time they fell and already a hot pink flush was spreading across the areas being abused.

"The one person in the world worth anything, the ONE. PERSON. You killed her. You _killed _her. For _what? _Because you it was _fun? _Because it got your rocks off?" Cody was raging again, each word punctuated by a vicious stroke that rocked Stiles forward, making him push himself as close to the pole as possible.

Stiles made a strangled, desperate sound in the back of his throat, teeth grit as new strokes fell across already burning areas of his body; the hurt twice as bad when the welts started to crisscross. Cody hit him hard across the wide part of his rear several times and he squirmed and jiggled urgently, shifting his weight from one knee to the other in a mostly fruitless attempt to deal with the sting. It wasn't just the pain, the sharp blows tingled and pricked madly like an intense itch he wasn't being allowed to scratch and somehow that was almost as bad as the hot, throbbing burn of the reddening welts.

There was no method or pattern to the blows being given and no consideration for safety. Cody was in a rage, hitting everything he could reach as hard as he could, as fast as he could. He wanted to _hurt _and unlike his previous, aborted attempt with the bat, he seemed to be perfectly all right with this familiar method of venting that need upon his captive. In fact, he seemed to find a sick kind of poetic justice in the brutality that was unfortunately only adding fuel to both his anger and ferocity. In Stiles' experience, people were always the most dangerous and vicious when they felt they had the moral high ground, no matter how misplaced that opinion might be.

"I didn't! I didn't!" Stiles protested around grit teeth, voice starting to shake. "It wasn't me, dude! It wasn't me! I swear to God! I swear to God, Cody, please!" He was instinctively trying to swallow his outcries, but his ass and thighs were turning a darkening shade of red and a few of the welts on his back were starting to bleed where they wrapped around his ribs, the cords cutting deepest when catching and tearing against his body's natural angles. Soon Stiles was muffling screams in the back of his throat; then he wasn't bothering to muffle them at all. He thrashed in his bonds, tugging at the cuffs until his wrists were bleeding too.

"Please stop! Please! Please please pleasepleasepleaseplease! For the love of God, just stop!" Stiles begged desperately, tears starting to roll down his cheeks. It hurt unimaginably bad. The ribbed, uneven edges of the extension cord caught and cut into him like a whip. His skin was on fire and each new blow landing on top of his growing collection of swelling welts hurt more than the last. He was practically climbing the battered pole now, pushing himself against it in desperate, useless attempts to escape, his body jittering and shaking with pain and adrenaline.

Cody didn't stop. He seemed to actually try to hit the other boy harder when he started begging, but that wasn't really possible because he was already going at him with everything he had. Stiles' shirt worked its way loose in the course of his violent struggling and fell down his back. Cody paused long enough to push it back up, but after it escaped a few more times he gave up on it and just beat Stiles over the shirt instead. He shifted the greater part of his attention to focusing on his captive's blistered ass and thighs now, since that was a less troublesome target and allowed him to better see his handiwork.

Stiles buried his face in the crook of his own elbow, screaming against the sweat slick flesh and tasting the salt of both his skin and his tears. Despite the coolness of the air, a fine sheen of agony induced perspiration was making his skin clammy and his hair damp. Cody whipped his blazing thighs relentlessly and Stiles bit down on the shoulder of his t-shirt, tugging at the fabric with his teeth almost hard enough to tear it. His voice was raw in his throat, the taste of the fabric dull and vaguely acidic on his tongue. It didn't really help him keep quiet, but then he wasn't actually trying to stay quiet. He was more than happy to bellow his lungs out in case there was the slightest a chance anyone might hear him, but he had to do _something. _He was desperate for distraction of any kind. He didn't know how to deal with the pain; he _couldn't _deal with it, and yet of course somehow he _was_ because he had to, because Cody was giving him no choice. Stiles held his breath until it felt like his head was going to explode, then let it out in a sobbing rush before dragging another one in, spots dancing before his eyes.

"You know what? Maybe I don't give a fuck why you did it," Cody seethed, his voice ragged with hatred and gasping with exertion as he took the full brunt of the destructive force seething inside him out on Stiles' helpless body. "You're just shit. That's all, just shit!" He hit Stiles over and over in the same place across the junction of his butt and thighs until he drew blood, well aware of how badly that would hurt.

Stiles howled in pain, begging and pleading and cursing until he was hoarse and nearly incoherent. Cody's stamina ran out before his anger, eventually forcing him to stop. His adrenaline spent, he dropped the now bloody cord from numb, torn fingers, panting for breath and shaking all over.

Stiles was shaking too. You couldn't see it through the dark fabric of his tee, but the cotton was sticking to his raw back and blood was seeping visibly from a number of the bruised, swelling welts crisscrossing his exposed flesh from his butt to his knees. His thighs trembled, legs unable to fully support him even though he was only kneeling. He gripped the pole with his hands, arms shaking almost as bad. He sobbed softly but hysterically, shoulders heaving raggedly as he tried to regain his composure.

Still panting, Cody shuffled to a corner of the shed behind Stiles and out of his line of sight. Around the raw rasp of his own sobbing breaths, Stiles heard the unmistakable sound of a pop-top can being opened, then the sound of his captor drinking feverishly. It was probably more energy drink; Cody seemed to have brought a case with him.

That guess was confirmed when Stiles saw Cody stagger back into sight, still clutching the can. The other boy leaned against the dirt-caked window set into the shed's wall, his eyes briefly closing, forehead tipped against the glass. The teen looked frankly worn out and at the end of his tether, face flushed, hair and shirt dripping with perspiration, hands shaking so he could hardly manage the can.

_"Aw, poor thing, bet whipping my fucking skin off just exhausted the hell out of you," _Stiles thought uncharitably, currently not able to feel at all sympathetic towards his captor. Cody had been through more than his share of tragedy perhaps, but as far as Stiles was concerned, that didn't give him the right to be a total dick to other people and hurt them in turn.

Stiles' body throbbed. He was terribly thirsty, but too afraid to ask for anything. He didn't want to bring Cody's attention back to him sooner than necessary. Instead he wiped his still watering eyes and running nose against the sleeve of his tee and shifted his aching knees against the hard floor, cringing in agony as he shifted his lower body about, desperate to mitigate the blazing fire there and struggling to find some position that didn't hurt quite so much. That proved patently impossible and the small, agitated movements did little to settle the ungodly stinging burn of his wounds. Despite how painful it would probably be, he felt the strong need to touch or rub the throbbing flesh, anything to still the maddening, tingling pin pricks of agony dancing across his rear like a thousand malicious ants swarming and biting at him. It was such an impossibly irritating sensation and he was so utterly helpless to do anything about it that Stiles felt frustrated tears trace down his cheeks anew. It was stupid to get upset over such a thing in his current situation, probably, but it was just... it was too much. Everything was a little too much right now and he was struggling to cope.

Cody returned to his side after a minute or two and Stiles tensed, hunching his head and staying quiet, trying to avoid making his captor any angrier than he already was. Stiles was in so much pain already; he didn't want to invite more. He couldn't take more.

Cody crouched down beside his prisoner, and after a minute, Stiles realized the younger boy was watching him cry. He immediately tried to stop crying, finally looking up at Cody with watery eyes when he couldn't take the staring anymore.

"D-Do you feel better now?" Stiles croaked bitterly. "Does it f-feel good to be just like the assholes who hurt you? Does it make you feel _strong_ to hurt someone who can't fight back?" Okay, so much for not giving the kid any more reason to be mad. Stiles wondered why he so rarely took his own good advice.

"Yeah," Cody rasped darkly. "It kinda does." The look in his eyes didn't necessarily agree with his words, but he pushed wearily back to his feet anyway. "Guess you're about ready for some more, huh?"

No, Stiles definitely wasn't. "No!" he said quickly, breath trying to hitch into sobs again when Cody made as if to move behind him again. "Don't. Please, no more. Look, I... you want to know the truth? Okay, o-okay, I'll tell you the truth."

Cody hesitated, coming back around so he could look him in the face. "Yeah?"

Stiles nodded, sniffing back tears. "Y-yeah," he agreed softly. "I'll tell you, but you won't believe me," he murmured miserably.

Cody settled on the floor to listen, looking wrung out and far more glad to be able to sit and rest than he probably would have liked Stiles to know. He rested bloodied hands palm up on his knees and Stiles could see that it was in fact Cody's blood and not his. The other boy's hands were still full of splinters from the shattered bat, the jagged wood shards now deeply embedded and gouged into him by how hard he'd been gripping the cords when he beat Stiles. Cody didn't even seem to notice, or perhaps he simply didn't care.

Stiles swallowed, finding his throat almost too dry to do so. His head was pounding and he honestly wanted more than anything to just pass out and not hurt for a while. "C-can I have something to drink? I'm like glue here, or sandpaper. Or sandpaper glue," he rasped, feeling a little confused over his adjectives as he struggled to find one that fit right.

"No," Cody said flatly. "Talk."

"See, normally no problem, but it's pretty funny how much of a thirst getting whipped builds up. It's kind of a long story and this would really be easier if I could have something to drink..." Stiles pressed.

"You want me to start hitting you again or you want to talk?"

"Talk!" Stiles hurried to say, instinctively trying to make a halting gesture with his hands that only served to tug at his bleeding wrists. He grimaced, pressing the side of his face dizzily against the post. "Talking is good. Talking is awesome. Let's definitely keep talking." He dry swallowed several more times. "Um... okay, so I did say it was kind of a long story, right? So just... just hear me all the way through, okay? I know what it's going to sound like, but just... hear the whole thing at least, all right?"

Cody said nothing, but Stiles chose to take it as agreement. "Right, so... okay, I need to start with a little back story and, um, there's some legends involved too. Do you know much about Japanese mythology? Have you ever heard of a nogitsune? 'cause, I'll be honest, I hadn't. Wish that was still the case, but you know what they say about wishes..." Stiles frowned. "Don't mean the _upon a star _thing, you know, the other thing, the one involving horses or... something. Anyway, nogitsune. So in Japanese folklore a nogitsune is a trickster spirit..."

Stiles proceeded to tell a highly edited version of the story in the longest, most rambling fashion possible. He wasn't quite optimistic enough to think that Cody would accept his story, but his kidnapper was running on fumes. If he could spin the tale out long enough, maybe Cody would decide he was too tired and stiff to beat him anymore. Or maybe someone would find him. If they knew he was missing. If anyone was looking.

Exhaustion was a blade that cut both ways, however. Stiles was badly wrung out himself and it was difficult to focus and make his words come out right all the time. It was fortunate that taking an hour to impart fifteen minutes worth of information was something he could do in his sleep. He was careful about what parts of the story he told. He left werewolves and kitsune out of it entirely, focusing instead on the nogitsune, the oni and the history with the WWII internment camps, changing some details along the way to facilitate all the parts he was leaving out. He related most of Mrs. Yukimura's story, as it had been related to him, but in his version she gave her life in the process of trapping the nogitsune the first time. It was cleaner that way. The very last thing he wanted was to give Cody's vengeful anger more targets, so he was careful to not bring Kira or her family anywhere into the narrative. He wasn't telling Cody about _any_ of his supernatural friends, not even their names. The other boy probably wasn't going to believe him anyway, but that didn't matter, he wasn't going to take any chances. He did have to have other people in the story, but he gave them different names and kept their parts minimal.

To say that Cody looked skeptical when he finished would be an understatement. At least, Stiles supposed, he didn't seem too terribly angry about it, although perhaps only because he was clearly struggling to stay awake.

Cody blinked slowly at him and then shook his head, regarding Stiles with a very dubious and incredulous expression. "Dude... seriously? What the hell are you _on_?"

Stiles sighed, leaning his temple wearily against the beam he was bound around. He hurt so much, and he was so tired. "I told you you wouldn't believe me," he murmured, voice long gone somewhat hoarse and cracked from thirst and too much screaming earlier. "But come on, why would I make something like that up? Don't you think I'd come up with something more believable if I was just going to lie?"

Cody simply shook his head again, leaning back against the wall and rubbing his face. "You really are just fucking crazy," he muttered, glaring at Stiles as if profoundly disappointed.

"Hey, pot and the kettle, I'm not the one who thought it was a great idea to kidnap and torture somebody," Stiles mumbled in retort. True, he hadn't expected Cody to believe him, but the fact that no one ever did rankled a bit anyway.

"No, you just think you're a Japanese demon from WWII who can kill with impunity," the other boy replied disdainfully. "Holy fuck, how did no one see this? You should have been in a nut house along with your nut job ninja-wannabe friends, not out where you can hurt people!"

"Were you not _listening?_" Stiles snapped, maybe a little more sensitive about the jibe than he should have been. "_I'm _not the demon, it _used _me and then... like, made a _copy _of me..." he trailed off, realizing how that sounded and how fast most people would be to pack him back off to Eichen house for insisting on a story like that. If he looked at it objectively, it did sound rather like paranoid delusions or a multiple personality disorder or whatever. "Look, I can prove it," he said finished instead, changing tactics and chancing a gambit.

"My friend got video of some of it on his phone. Do you have a phone? I can get him to send it to you." Stiles could of course do no such thing, but it didn't matter. He didn't actually care about proving his story to Cody, he just wanted an excuse to be able to call Scott. It was Saturday and he'd not had any plans with anyone. His father wouldn't get off duty until late, and even then he'd probably assume Stiles was out somewhere with the pack at first. Stiles wasn't sure what time it was, but the light outside indicated somewhere between morning and afternoon. No one was likely to miss him until well into the evening, which meant Cody had all day to do whatever he wanted to him. Stiles wasn't certain he'd last that long. He needed to make sure someone knew he was in trouble sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately, Cody didn't seem quite _that _out of it yet. "Right... I should just call him and let you talk to him so you can tell him where to find us. I don't think so."

Stiles scowled in frustration. "How would I do that when _I _don't even know where to find us?! I have no idea where we are, Cody! _Inside an old shed somewhere _is not exactly like drawing a map, you know? Look, I'm offering you actual proof here, do you want it or not?" Half of Stiles' frustration was born from the fact that he truly _didn't _know where they were. He'd been trying to puzzle it out since he woke up, but there just wasn't enough data. He couldn't hear anything helpful from outside, no cars or trains or other indicators that might have let him place the location, and the contents of the shed didn't help either. He could be in Cody's back yard, or he could be in the middle of the freaking preserve in some old deserted place that Cody had found. There was no way to know and no way to get that information to anyone else... and that scared him more than he wanted to admit.

Cody's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "I don't know what you think you're trying to pull. I'm starting to think you really are some kind of sick Jekyll and Hyde head case, but you know what? You're right about one thing, let's make a call. Let's talk about _proof_ and _evidence. _I know _exactly _who we should call about that."

Cody dragged himself to his feet with obvious effort and shuffled off behind Stiles again. Stiles closed his eyes and tried to still the panic that that motion instilled in him. There was a familiar rustling and jangling sound that made Stiles suspect Cody had a backpack in the far corner and he was rifling through it. Logic suggested that his captor was up to something other than hurting him right now, but he still wasn't able to breathe properly again until Cody came back into his line of sight.

The other boy was holding a phone and Stiles frowned. It was _his_ phone. Cody must have taken it from his house when he'd taken him. Stiles suddenly wondered how Cody had gotten him from there to here. They were about the same size, Cody couldn't easily have carried him. He could have dragged him, he supposed, but to get far that meant Cody had to have had a vehicle of some kind. Did he have his own car? Or had he taken Stiles' keys and his jeep along with his phone?

Stiles had no answers for these questions, so he watched as Cody pressed and held the power button. He never turned his phone all the way off. Cody must have done so earlier, proving that perhaps he did watch TV occasionally, although he would have been better off taking the battery out if he'd really wanted to be cautious.

Stiles worried his sore lower lip between his teeth, suddenly wishing he used a lock screen on his phone. He didn't because it was a pain having to enter a passcode or swipe in a pattern in every time he needed to look something up quickly, but the idea of Cody having access to all his contacts' personal information and all his texts and emails was worrisome.

Fortunately, Cody didn't seem inclined to explore at the moment. The phone booted up with a soft tinkling of tones and Cody tapped around on the screen until he found the number he wanted. He pressed the cell to his ear and there was a long pause, presumably while it rang. Cody frowned and pulled the phone away from his ear again long enough to hang up and try again. Stiles assumed that whatever number he'd called first must have rung through to voicemail and he was now trying a different one.

This time someone must have answered because after a moment Cody said "yes," in response to a greeting or prompt that Stiles couldn't hear. The other boy's dark gaze fixed on Stiles as he spoke into the phone. "I need to speak to Sheriff Stilinski," he said. "It's important. Tell him... it's a matter of life and death."


	3. Chapter 3

John Stilinski set down the file box he was carrying atop the short file cabinet next to the man on duty in the evidence storage room. "These can go back, now, Dave, thanks," he said, giving the box lid a pat.

The silver-haired man nodded and took the box away into the back, limping a bit arthritically. A long-retired cop himself, Dave was one of many temporary employees currently working non-active service jobs in the Beacon Hills Sheriff's department since their force had once again been recently diminished and their retention rate was currently nothing short of abysmal.

As the Sheriff headed back into the main area of the squad room, Parrish caught his attention with a wave. "Call on line 2, sir," the younger man informed him. "Said it was important."

John nodded, going into his office to take the call, but leaving the door open. Crossing his to his desk, he saw the cell phone on his blotter flashing a little blue light at him, indicating he had missed a call or received a text. He picked up his desk phone with one hand, cradling it to his ear while he thumbed his cell awake with the other to check the display.

"Sheriff Stilinski," he said into the receiver. His cell's splash screen informed him he had 1 missed call from Stiles. John put the cell back down, making a mental note to call him back after he took care of this caller.

"About time! I said this was important!" the voice on the other end of the line sounded young and impatient. John mentally gathered his patience.

"How can I help you, sir?" he said in flat, professional tones, flipping through the too-long ignored stack of requisition files sitting on the corner of his desk with one hand while he talked. He was a small town Sheriff; he got a huge number of nuisance and complaint callers who all considered their issues "very important".

"You can help me by not lying and covering up for your head-case son," the voice on the other end of the line said venomously.

John stiffened, the lines around his mouth going tight and his fingers clenching around the grip of the receiver in controlled anger at the careless words. To be sure, he'd gotten more than a few complaint calls about Stiles during his son's lifetime - pretty much ever since the kid could _walk_, really. He was fairly versed at dealing with such things, but the choice of words after everything they'd too recently been through set him instantly on edge. He had to draw a deep breath against the instant flare of ire that rose like bile in the back of his throat.

The caller was still speaking, and if his first words had inspired irritated heat, the following sentences brought with them an equally visceral chill.

"You can _help _me by telling me if you made any copies of those hospital security tapes before you _destroyed _them. For your sake, I hope you did."

John's gaze flickered to the glass windows that ringed his office, overlooking the bullpen beyond and allowing him to be with the other officers while maintaining a certain privacy when necessary. Right now only officers Parrish and Easton were at their desks, both involved in what they were doing and neither paying attention to him.

He drew in another deep breath. He didn't like the fact that the sudden, unexpected question had made him feel _guilty, _but that was a reaction he couldn't help. A lifetime of protecting and serving told him that destroying evidence was a crime. Seventeen years of being a _father_ told him that protecting his completely innocent son was much more important.

"I'm not sure what this is about. You want to clarify for me what exactly your problem is?" he asked calmly. He wanted to demand to know who was calling, what they knew and how they knew it, but of course, he knew better than that. He picked his cell up again, looking worriedly at that missed call from Stiles. He got the sinking feeling this timing was not coincidental, but there was no indication that his son had left a message.

"Clarify? _Clarify?!_" the voice on the other end of the line practically screamed at him and John pulled the phone away from his ear a little. "Okay, _sure. _I'll _clarify. _You're a dirty cop, fudging evidence so your psychotic kid, who thinks that half of him is some kind of Japanese demon, can get off scot-free with participating in _murder. _Oh yeah, I know, don't even try to bullshit me, _Sheriff, _I was _at _the hospital, all right?"

The chilly knot in John's stomach crystallized into full-blown ice. It wasn't the accusations being leveled at him that concerned him; it wasn't necessarily even the much more worrisome accusations being leveled at Stiles. No, the thing currently making his cop-senses scream was the fact that whoever this person was, they had mentioned the nogitsune. Even if they thought it was only part of some psychotic delusion of Stiles', the only way they could have found out something so specific was from someone who knew. There were only a handful of people who fit that description and most of them would never easily have chosen to impart that information to someone else, especially someone so clearly hostile.

John half rose out of his chair, glancing through the glass windows fronting his office for a different reason now. He waved, trying to get someone's attention without speaking, but both officers were still focused on their paperwork.

"All right, why don't we just take a breath here," he said as evenly as he could, trying to find the best way to come at this. "Listen..."

"No, _you _listen!" the voice snapped back at him. "I want those tapes, or... or a full confession, or some other evidence, proof of what you both have done. You get are going to get me that, or your son is dead. You understand? Is that enough _clarity _for you?!"

The ice in the Sheriff's stomach liquefied and flooded outward through his veins. He squeezed the phone so hard it creaked, gesturing violently towards the other room. Parrish chose that moment to look up. The younger officer straightened immediately, expression going serious and questioning as soon as he saw the look on his chief's face.

John gestured to the phone in his hand and exaggeratedly mouthed _"trace this!" _to his deputy. Parrish understood easily and was out of his chair and across the office immediately.

"Don't you go near my son," the Sheriff warned, still professional but with a decidedly hard and dangerous edge now lacing his tone. "I don't care what you _think _you know; if you touch him..."

There was a short bark of dark, mirthless laughter from the other end of the phone. "Oh God, you're such a cliché. Well, sorry, it's a little late for that. He screams like a little girl, did you know that?"

The Sheriff was fully on his feet now, the cord stretched taught between him and the phone, his muscles even more strained, knuckles gone white on the phone. Before he could respond, a different voice came on the line.

"D-Dad? Dad, I'm okay!" Stiles' familiar voice was hoarse and cracked in a way that completely belied his words. "No, wait, Cody! Let me..." the rushed words became impossible to hear clearly as the phone was obviously pulled away once more, the sounds cutting off completely a moment later with a sharp smack.

"You get me what I want, Sheriff, or he's going to be a lot _less _okay," the first voice warned.

John's heart was thundering in his ears, anger and fear almost choking him. Any frail hope that this was some kind of awful hoax had gone completely out the window when he heard his son's voice.

"Where do you want it? How do I get it to you?" John didn't bother with further threats or denials. His voice held a quality of sheer, deadly calm, like the eye of a gathering storm.

There was a pause from the other end of the line as if the caller were only now thinking through his answer. "Run it on the evening news, channel 6. I see it there; I'll leave him somewhere and tell you where to find him." He sounded like he was preparing to hang up.

"What if I don't have anything to give them that they'll run?" John stalled desperately for time, craning his neck around and trying to see whether Parrish had the gotten the trace or not.

The question wouldn't have fazed a more experienced kidnapper, but the person on the other end of the line seemed both uncertain and annoyed by it. "Then... then you go on and tell them what happened. You tell them what your son did, what you did. You find those two bastards with the swords and put a bullet in their brains. Make sure _that _gets on the news."

"But - " the flat deadness of the line told John that the other party had hung up. "Hello? Hello!" he tried anyway, but there was no answer other than the phone starting to pulse a busy tone in his hand. He hung up with more force than was strictly necessary and fairly ran into the other room, nearly colliding with Parrish who was hurrying in from the other direction.

They did a quick, side-step dance to avoid hitting each other head-on that might have been comical at any other time. "Did you get it? Did you get the trace?" the Sheriff demanded quickly, face ashen and grim. His tone and the flurry of action drew the attention of the other officer present. Easton set aside her paperwork and rose out of her chair with a concerned expression.

Parrish nodded. "Cell phone," he hesitated very briefly. "The number's registered to you, Sir."

John nodded, having already suspected as much. He rattled off the last four digits for confirmation and the blond deputy nodded. "That's Stiles' phone," the older main said quietly. Parrish just nodded, either having assumed as much, or perhaps even having remembered the number from the last time they were desperately trying to get a trace on his wayward boy. The Sheriff could only hope he would have better luck this time. "Did you get a location?"

Parrish nodded, but with a degree of hesitant unhappiness that was not encouraging. "A general one," he said, striding quickly over to the computer in the corner and gesturing to the screen where a map of the county was pulled up. There was no indicator on it at present, but Parrish circled an area with his forefinger. "Tower data says the call came from somewhere in this area." He zoomed in on the map and outlined a slightly smaller, more L shaped region. "We couldn't get an exact GPS fix which usually happens when there isn't enough data signal, so somewhere in here is most likely."

John pressed his lips together with a frown, exchanging a look with both Parrish and Easton. He saw his thoughts mirrored on their faces. The area Parrish had indicated included nearly 20 square miles at least. He ran his hand down his face. "The phone's off now?" he asked quietly, already knowing the answer. Nobody was that stupid in this day and age.

Parrish gave a small, regretful nod. "Lost signal almost as soon as it hung up. I'll keep pinging it in case it comes back."

The Sheriff nodded, but knew there was no guarantee that would happen. He looked at his watch. Almost four hours until the evening news broadcast. That was how much time they had to figure this out and find Stiles. Trying to fulfill the angry young man's demands wasn't a real option, or at least not one to be considered except as a very last, desperate resort. Presenting the media with two dead bodies or copies of security tapes that did not exist were not even possibilities. He would have gone on the news and confessed to being the Zodiac killer if it would save his son, but the man wanted him to denounce _Stiles_ to the world as a killer and he couldn't do that, he _couldn't_. Besides, he'd been in law enforcement long enough to know that satisfying a kidnapper's demands didn't necessarily ensure a loved one's safe return, especially since Stiles' captor clearly thought him a mentally deranged murderer.

The Sheriff had to pause a moment at that thought, closing his eyes and steeling him against the memory of his boy's cracking voice and the kidnapper's vicious words. Stiles had been through so much already. He'd been through hell, and it was like pulling teeth to get him to believe he really wasn't to blame for the things that had happened. Now this... it just wasn't fair. None of what he'd been through was fair and a heartbroken, protective rage burned hot in the elder Stilinski's chest. He knew when not to let his emotions guide his actions, however. He kept the feelings suppressed for now and let his training and instincts take the fore.

"Okay, here's the situation. I've just gotten a ransom call from a disturbed sounding individual who blames me for not clearing up the hospital massacre and thinks that the extreme weirdness of the case means we're hiding evidence and covering things up." He and Parrish exchanged looks at this. Easton hadn't been at the station when the Oni attacked, but Parrish had. Even if he didn't know the details, anyone who had survived that night was aware just how very, very weird it had been.

"He somehow seems to think the situation has something to do with Stiles because of my son's recent... issues," John continued, briefly bringing his deputies up to speed. They all knew that Stiles had been through a rough patch. The sleep walking and vanishing acts, the hospital stays and medical tests, his brief stay at Eichen House... these weren't secrets you could keep in a small town, especially not in a department as small as theirs.

"This person has my son and has threatened to kill him in four hours unless I produce evidence we don't have," he finished. "We need to find them first. Easton," he turned to the serious-faced African-American woman standing nearby. "Radio Wilson, tell him to go by my house immediately and take a look around. Advise him of the situation and have him report in as soon as he gets there. Notify Riggs and Brice that they're on deck and make sure dispatch knows to route calls their way. Parrish, pull up the full list of everyone documented as having been at the hospital at the time of the attack and search for any and all variations of the name "Cody". Our guy claims he was there, but we can't count on that. Search family and friends if you need to, pay special attention to relations of anyone who was injured or killed. This guy has an axe to grind and it sounds personal. If you strike out there then run the name through every database you can think of, including the school records going back at least five years, he didn't sound that old. Easton, soon as you get hold of Wilson, help Parrish with the searches."

Orders dispatched and acknowledged with quick nods and a flurry of movement, the Sheriff retreated into his office again and woke up his hibernating computer. Quickly, he brought up a browser and logged into the remote security system he'd had installed when Stiles first started sleep walking. Everything had been relatively quiet since the defeat of the nogitsune, but he hadn't yet been able to bring himself to discontinue the service. Out of deference to his son's privacy and in an attempt to help him feel like things were getting back to normal, he'd turned off the camera in Stiles' bedroom and most of the rest of the house's interior as well, but the outside of the house and the main access points were still being monitored.

The cameras were motion triggered and they showed four activations that morning. The first was him leaving for work. The second was a kid chucking a newspaper at the door, the third was a stray cat... the forth was a young man, a _kid _with most of his face obscured by a raised hood and sunglasses. He had dark hair and wore a back pack. He kept looking and shifting nervously about on the doorstep until Stiles opened the door. John's lips compressed until they were bloodless as he watched Stiles get tased and then clubbed unconscious. The attacker stepped over his limp body, disappearing into the house for several minutes, apparently uncaring of the fact that Stiles was still laying sprawled in the partially open doorway. It was galling, although not entirely shocking, that no one had noticed or reported any of this. Unfortunately, crime was a lot easier to get away with sometimes then most people appreciated.

The Sheriff wished he knew what the other boy had been doing in the house, but the interior cameras were unfortunately turned off and he could only see him when he came back to the doorway again. He watched the boy grab Stiles by the ankles and literally drag him out of the house towards the driveway. They were out of frame then, but the Sheriff recognized the familiar, choking rumble of Stiles' jeep being started up. So... it was likely the assailant had gone into the house to get Stiles' keys, and probably his phone, since Stiles had still been wearing his pajamas and was unlikely to have had it on him. It took either some kind of nerve or a pretty impulsive lack of planning to launch an assault like this when you didn't even have a getaway vehicle of your own. Impulsiveness in a kidnapper was never a good thing for the victim.

_He screams like a little girl, did you know that? _ The words haunted him. He didn't want to think about what that meant. Couldn't think about it. Couldn't afford the distraction. Not yet.

John looked at the cell phone on his desk, still showing the missed call from Stiles. It was the kidnapper, almost certainly. Must have tried his cell number first and the department line next. Drawing a deep breath, he thumbed the phone on and sent a brief text message.

_Scott, need you at the station ASAP. It's Stiles. _

He felt a twinge of guilt when he sent it because he knew it would bring his son's best friend running, and possibly drag the rest of "the pack" into it as well. What kind of an adult was he that he willfully involved teenagers he should be protecting in dangerous situations? Allison Argent's tragic loss weighed on him heavily, reminding him of the all too real cost that could be exacted for that kind of involvement. As a parent and an officer of the law, he shouldn't drag them into cases that were his responsibility to handle, especially since this wasn't even a supernatural situation per-se. They had been through a lot, and they were just kids.

He'd watched many of them grow up, especially Scott, he and Stiles having been inseparable since preschool. He'd taught Scott to catch a ball, bandaged scraped knees and learned how to operate the home nebulizer the child had needed to use for a time when he was six and an infection had wrecked his already weak respiratory system for months. Honestly, sometimes over the years he'd been moreprotective of Scott than of Stiles, because Scott had been the fragile, sensitive one while Stiles was all energy and laughter and wild ideas, rushing heedlessly into danger and bouncing like a rubber ball when he fell.

But Scott was no longer fragile and the Sheriff feared that Stiles was starting to lose his elasticity what with the way life seemed determined to keep knocking him down. The bottom line was that Scott would understand the situation like no one else on the force could, he had unique skills they needed right now, and he would be just as invested in saving Stiles as John was. John would use every resource at his disposal to find his son and he wouldn't feel guilty about it. Guilt was a luxury he couldn't afford.

He downloaded the video to his computer and paused it over a couple of the best views he could find of the kidnapper. The boy's face was pretty obscured in most of them, but his clothes and backpack were clearly visible and you could see enough of his face that at least they had something to start with. Printing the pictures out, he carried them into the squad room, placing them down on the desk near where Parrish and Easton were working on the searches.

"This is the guy we're looking for," he told them.

They both looked over, and Easton frowned, getting up and coming over to study the pictures more closely. "I've seen this recently," she said, tapping on the image of the gray backpack the boy was wearing, a distinctive zebra pattern running up the side just visible. Quickly, she hurried over to a different desk, rifling through the files until she came up with the folder she was looking for. "Here!" she said quickly, pulling out a picture of an unsmiling boy in a tee and jeans, the same backpack slung over one shoulder as he stood next to a petite woman with black hair and a bright smile. "I saw it on Wilson's desk. It must be a report he took this morning before I came on duty..." she was already scanning the paper as she spoke, words becoming distracted. "Here we go! It's a missing persons report for one Cody Wells... oh my God, sir... he's 16."

The Sheriff snatched the folder from her quickly, scanning the paper for himself and taking in the details. There weren't many. The boy had been missing less than 24 hours, but he was a minor so the officer had taken the report anyway as a matter of course, probably intending to log it in later after he checked up on details. It was no great surprise that logging the report immediately or briefing anyone else on it hadn't been a top priority given how painfully short staffed they were. Most of the missing person reports on teenagers were resolved by themselves when the gallivanting youths turned up hung-over and regretful.

"Patch me through to Wilson and get this Trudy Garston who reported him missing on the phone, right away. I need to talk to her."


	4. Chapter 4

_**A/N:** Please note that there are a few new / additional trigger warnings for this chapter, including nightmares, panic attacks and (relatively mild) abuse of someone in a state of anxiety. If those things might be difficult for you to read, please avoid this chapter. Thanks! And thank you all for the lovely reviews! It helps inspire me to keep going, so thanks!_

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Stiles didn't understand why Cody thought it too great a risk to let him call a friend, but then went and called the _police department _instead, but as he listened to what the other boy was saying to his father, he began to get it. Dissatisfied with the results he was getting from torturing Stiles, he was moving on to extortion and ransom. _Classy. _Cody sounded like he was imitating every bad ransom call he'd ever seen, but at least he'd neatly solved Stiles' problem of making sure somebody knew there was a problem, even if Stiles did kind of want to bash the other boy's face in for accusing his dad of being a dirty cop.

Stiles winced, ducking his head with an angry scowl when Cody rubbed the fact that he'd been screaming in his father's face. _Yes, his dad knew __**exactly**__ what he sounded like when he was screaming his head off, actually. His father had been there, had held him far too many nights when Stiles woke up shrieking and thrashing incoherently, lost in panic until the familiar shape and strength of his father's arms and the reassuring murmur of his voice finally brought him back to reality. _

Stiles felt unutterably guilty. He'd put his father through so much unforgivable crap. He was sure his dad would have been much better off if he'd had a halfway _normal _kid; someone who didn't get into so much trouble, or run around with werewolves, or get possessed by thousand-year-old foreign demons who blew up the police station and killed people. Someone for whom he didn't have to destroy evidence and go against all his morals to protect. All Stiles ever wanted to do was take care of his dad, to not lose him like he'd lost his mother, but he was probably killing him faster than anything else could.

_"I don't see why you're putting up such a fuss. You damage everyone around you sooner or later, anyway, Stiles. Isn't it more fun this way? Lucky that werewolves are so much sturdier than most. Perfect for you, isn't it?" The nogitsune's voice echoed in his head as the creature carelessly played through his memories, pointing out all the instances that served to illustrate his point as he happily fed on the pain that Stiles tried stubbornly but fruitlessly not to give him._

Stiles shook the memory off quickly, telling himself it had all just been lies and manipulation. He knew that was true. His head knew that, it was just harder to get it through to the more irrational parts of his heart, especially now, faced with Cody's awful loss and painful fury and the fact that he was yet again putting his father through hell. The nogitsune had killed Cody's mother, not him, but the nogitsune wouldn't have been able to hurt anyone if he hadn't opened the door and let it in. He didn't know what he should have or could have done to prevent it all, but that didn't make him feel any better about it.

Stiles tried to reassure his dad as much as he could in the few moments Cody allowed him. He knew it was mostly useless, but he might as well since there was little other useful intel he could pass along in that time. He'd been trying to think of what to say if Cody put him on the whole time they were talking, but there just wasn't much he had that would help. _I'm in an old shed of some kind _was really as useless as he'd told Cody it was earlier. Cody would probably only get angry and beat him some more and then move them somewhere else if he did that, rendering the information even more useless. The only useful thing he had was part of Cody's name and he'd made sure to get that in there at least. Cody didn't even seem to notice, but he knew his dad would pick up on it. Cody himself had gift-wrapped the fact that he'd been at the hospital, so Stiles was fairly confident the police would be able to put two and two together and figure out who his captor was. Of course, whether or not that would actually end up helping them _find_ him remained to be seen.

Cody cut the call unceremoniously after making his demands. He immediately powered the phone down, and to Stiles' disappointment, this time he popped the back off and pried out the battery as well, dropping both to the floor by the wall. Stiles hoped they had been able to trace the call, but he wasn't going to count on it. Tracking people down through their phones could be kind of hit or miss he'd found, especially if there was any kind of interference. Still, he had hope. That was important right now.

Still half-naked, Stiles was starting to shiver. It was a fairly warm day for the middle of winter, but it _was _still the middle of winter. The perspiration cooling on his damp hair and skin made it worse. The heat of his wounds had dissipated into a raw, gnawing pain that was only aggravated further by the trembling tenseness of his cold muscles. His cheekbone throbbed from the blow Cody had given him to shut him up when they were on the phone. He was so ready to be done with this.

Cody slid silently back down the wall to sit, rubbing his forehead as if it ached.

"What now?" Stiles whispered after a long moment, unable to take the quiet and forced inaction even if he should have found it a reprieve.

"We wait," Cody mumbled, tipping his head back against the wall and staring up at the ceiling. "See if Daddy comes through or if he cares more about his own reputation." He leveled Stiles with a gaze from the bottom of his eyes. He obviously thought the latter to be a distinct possibility.

Anger swirled across Stiles' face, hardening his eyes and compressing his lips. He had zero tolerance for people dissing on his dad. Of course his father wouldn't meet Cody's demands, or at least, Stiles certainly _hoped_ he wouldn't, but not because he didn't _care_.

"How are you gonna see if you does or not?" Stiles asked after a moment, wisely biting back all the other things he _wanted_ to say, which probably would have earned him another beating. "Not really seeing a TV around here. Think you can get it on your phone?" Stiles probed innocently. Cody had turned off _his _phone, but if the boy had his own and the police figured out his identity, they could easily track them that way instead.

Cody wouldn't look at him. "My phone died," he mumbled.

Stiles rolled his yes. _Of course it did, because that was just his perfect luck. He got the kidnapper who was _**_so_**_ill prepared he couldn't even make stupid helpful mistakes. _

Then a darker, more unpleasant fear reared its head and he swallowed, dry throat constricting painfully in on itself. "So... what are you going to do?" he asked with attempted casualness. It struck him suddenly that Cody's lack of ability to monitor his own ransom demands meant he could just as easily decide to not bother waiting, or keeping Stiles alive at all for that matter.

Cody looked put out by the question. He scowled at Stiles as if he didn't appreciate the questioning or being forced to look at the gaps in his own improvised plans. "I'll figure something out," was all he said. Cody leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes as if he were attempting to do that, but Stiles soon realized the other boy had actually fallen asleep instead.

Shifting carefully on his aching knees, Stiles tried to crane his neck around and get a better look at the handcuffs securing him. He winced as the motion pulled agonizingly at his injuries which were now starting to make his skin feel tight and stiff, as if it were stretched too tightly over his frame.

He still couldn't actually see his wrists, no matter how he squirmed. Tugging and scooting his bound hands around did him exactly as much good as it had been doing thus far - meaning none. Cody was sleeping soundly enough that Stiles' motions didn't wake him. This was the best chance he was likely to get to escape... but Stiles didn't see how to manage it.

If he were an action hero on TV, it would be easy, he thought a bit resentfully; envying those people their skillful ease in extracting themselves from situations exactly like this and the unrealistic expectations it gave him for what he ought to be able to accomplish. He should be able to just pick his cuffs or slide his hands out or find some creative way to sever the chains... but despite the fact that his life felt rather like fiction sometimes, it didn't seem to be lending him any Jack Bauer or Batman style prowess with escapes just now. Maybe it was because his life was more horror movie than action thriller, which just wasn't fair at all, because horror movies always ended pointlessly with most of the cast dead. And... yeah, that really did feel like his life just now.

To be fair, Stiles _could_ actually pick a lock. Door locks and padlocks anyway, if he had the right tools, and enough time. Handcuff locks weren't nearly as easy as movies made them out to be, and they had always given him trouble. Sometimes he could manage it, but never when he was actually the one wearing the cuffs. Add to it the awkwardness of his position, the impossibility of the angle, the torn, bloody state of his wrists and the numbness of his fingers and it just wasn't happening. Not to mention the fact that he had nothing to even try to jam in the lock could he have somehow managed to reach it.

Stiles was nothing if not resourceful and determined so he spent a long time squirming about and trying to figure out a plan, but eventually he had to give it up. There was no way out. He had the perfect opportunity, but there was just no way out. It was so frustrating it brought tears to his eyes and he blinked hard to keep them back. He hurt badly, he was so thirsty his throat ached and his head felt fuzzy and thick.

He didn't realize that he had drifted off too until the dreams started. He didn't know it was a dream, at first. He was walking down the familiar hallways of Beacon Hills Memorial and he thought he was looking for Scott, or Mrs. McCall... but then everything got darker and the walls were splashed with blood, bodies choking the hallway. His bare feet left behind a crimson trail of footprints as he stumbled forward, moving not under his own volition, but carried along like a puppet playing its role in the gruesome drama unfolding.

Turning a corner, he caught up with the Oni, saw their black clad backs moving ahead of him, swords swinging. He wasn't barefoot anymore and the scent of blood filled him not with horror, but with a sweet sense of joy and satisfaction. Whimpering by his feet made him look down, and he saw Cody, ashen faced and terrified, eyes fearful and challenging at the same time as he knelt over his mother's body in an impossibly large pool of blood. The hallway seemed to recede, widening the space around them until they were ankle deep in a literal ocean of crimson. Stiles' hands were dripping with it, and he laughed, feeling not his own teeth against his tongue, but a mouthful of jagged shark fangs. And Stiles knew. He knew it wasn't him; it was the nogistune laughing. The demon laughed because even though no longer free, he was still causing chaos and pain, still ruining lives, still using Stiles as a catalyst for destruction.

When he looked back down, he found it wasn't Cody's mother dead at his feet anymore at all, it was Claudia. It was _his _mother and Cody had been replaced by his father, holding his mother's limp form and looking up at Stiles like he just didn't understand.

Moving with nightmare slowness, Stiles back-pedaled away from the sight, shaking his head and desperately trying to get away. He knew now, this wasn't real, that he was dreaming, and he tried to wake, to clear the awful image away, but all that seemed to do was conjure up another to take its place. His feet dragged and caught like gravity was crushing down on him and now it wasn't his mother and father anymore, it was Allison and Scott. His best friend was holding his love in his arms and howling in grief and Stiles was trying to force himself to run so hard it felt like he was tearing his skin off.

Scott looked up at him, but not with anger or condemnation. Scott looked at him with compassionate anguish. _"It's not your fault, Stiles. It's not your fault." _His father was standing behind Scott suddenly, a comforting hand on Scott's shoulder, gentle eyes fixed on his son as if he shared the sentiment, and suddenly Stiles couldn't breathe.

Without warning, his feet were abruptly loosed and finally he was running and running like he'd never stop. He ran until everything was gone, he ran until his feet tangled and the clinging dark started to wrap around him again like a shroud, trapping his arms and legs, making them useless and leaden. He thrashed wildly against the restricting coils that looked far too much like rotting bandages in his mind's eye.

Someone was shaking him. Someone was demanding something in an irritated, concerned tone, but he couldn't make sense of the words. Stiles came aware to the familiar sensation of screaming at the top of his lungs, his body thrashing about in his bonds, his heart pounding in his ears. It took him a long moment to sort out what was reality and come to the realization that he was in fact awake now. He stopped screaming and flailing, instead clinging to the pole he was bound around and ducking his head, sobbing softly for breath and in distress as he struggled for composure.

Cody was standing over him, bleary-eyed with sleep, dark purple smudges beneath both eyes lending a bedraggled cast to his irritated and confused expression. "What the fuck, man?" he rasped thickly. Clearly, Stiles' nightmare had woken him too, no matter how soundly he'd been sleeping.

Stiles couldn't respond. The pain in his back had come rushing back to him with renewed vigor and waking from one nightmare into another wasn't lending itself to helping him calm down. With sinking despair he felt the familiar tightness clamping down on his chest, his lungs heaving uselessly for oxygen, his body starting to tremble as his head spun dizzily. He didn't just _feel _trapped, he _was _trapped and his lungs heaved uselessly. The attack pulled him under and Cody shaking him and demanding what was wrong only made it worse, his heart jumping higher up his throat every time the other boy touched him. He couldn't even find enough coherency to explain and could only babble at Cody that he couldn't breathe and needed to be let go.

That didn't go over well and the situation went from bad to worse as Cody began to get angry. Stiles could barely make sense of what he was saying, but he understood the pain perfectly well when Cody struck his injured back with an open palm in an effort to get him to settle down. That had the exact opposite effect. Stiles cried out and tried to curl into as small a ball as his bonds allowed, but he couldn't stop shaking or struggling with the cuffs. Cody hit him a second time, threatening to take the cord to him again and Stiles was so terrified of another beating he literally started choking. He was trying to stop, he knew he was pissing Cody off and he would probably pay a terrible price for it, but the situation was beyond his control and the more urgently he tried to fight, the worse it got. His vision danced with yellow blotches, going dark around the edges like a vignette.

Stiles wasn't really sure when or why Cody stopped shaking and threatening him, but eventually he withdrew to the other side of the shed, out of Stiles' view. This unfortunately didn't help as much as it might have, given the recent threats, but as more and more time passed and he didn't return or hurt his captive again, Stiles began to regain at least a modicum of control. He closed his eyes, desperately trying the breathing exercises that someone _aka almost certainly Lydia _had looked up, printed out and left in his locker earlier in the fall.

_Stupid dreams, stupid anxiety, stupid nogtsune, stupid Cody, stupid stupid everything. _The setting for the dream that had triggered him was no great shock, he supposed, given his current circumstances, even if he and the nogitsune had been in separate bodies by the time those events occurred. It wasn't really memory, more likely just his own imagination creating the scene from the other memories he had of being possessed and the crime scene photos from the hospital, or possibly even just the story that Cody had told. He dismissed it all firmly, but unfortunately some points resonated a little too much to be completely ignored. The nogitsune _was _still claiming victims even now and that made Stiles _angry. _It had no right. It was _gone_. They _won._ It had no right to keep screwing with everybody's lives after the fact like this, not even Cody's even if he was an unstable sadistic kidnapping dick.

The anger actually helped counter his fear for some reason, or maybe the breathing exercises were finally having an effect. Whatever the cause, Stiles' head began to clear and the shaking of his abused limbs settled down to a gentler tremble of exhaustion.

Cody came back after a while, holding another open can of energy drink. He still looked like shit, although he seemed more awake now. He came close to Stiles with some reluctance, holding the can out towards him uncertainly as if the absurdly helpless boy might bite.

"You done freaking out?" he asked cautiously, and Stiles only then realized, to his somewhat grim amusement, that his panic attack had actually scared Cody, or at least deeply unsettled him. He couldn't imagine why, since it wasn't like the other boy was concerned for his welfare, but he supposed Cody already thought him deranged, so maybe that was it. People often feared what they didn't understand.

Stiles half-shrugged and then winced. "Dunno, you done freaking me out?" he shot back, voice much hoarser than he'd expected. His head was throbbing, eyes gummy and his mouth felt like it was coated in sand paper. He looked with intense wistfulness at the can in Cody's hand, still hovering unfortunately out of his reach.

Cody seemed to understand the unspoken request, and even more surprisingly, granted it. He put the can to Stiles' chapped lips and tipped it, spilling the contents into his mouth and down his shirt. The drink was disgustingly sweet in Stiles' parched mouth and the carbonation almost painful at the rate which he gulped it, but it didn't matter because he was _so _thirsty and any liquid right now was beyond welcome.

It was awkward drinking from a container someone else was holding, and a lot of the liquid was running down the corners of Stiles' chin and making the front of his shirt damp and sticky, but Stiles didn't care. He drank as much as he could as quickly as he could, tipping his head to follow the can and get more, desperately gulping up everything Cody allowed him for fear it would be taken away at any moment.

Cody did not pull away as quickly as Stiles might have feared, allowing his captive to drink his fill. The can was mostly empty by the time he finally tossed it away.

Stiles burped a couple times, his stomach roiling a little uneasily at the sudden, over-rapid influx, but his head felt clearer at least and it was getting even easier to breathe. The caffeine and sugar on an empty stomach hit his nervous system quickly, making him feel both jittery and yet at the same time more focused as the rush of stimulant took the temporary place of the meds he hadn't had today.

He licked his lips, looking at the window which was his only way to judge the time of day. It was still light outside. The angle of the sun had changed, but not by much. He and Cody probably hadn't slept that long, maybe an hour or two at the most. It didn't seem to have refreshed either of them. If possible, Cody looked more tired now than before, his movements slow and his eyes dull, as if the anger and hatred that had been energizing him earlier were simply too much for him to maintain all the time.

Stiles was more than a little disappointed that no one had found them yet. The police definitely must have had difficulty tracing the call, or maybe they were really far away? Stiles didn't think that was very likely, however. Unless he was figuring it wrong, the timeline of his abduction didn't support the idea of them having traveled too very far.

"You epileptic?" Cody asked, his voice more dull than curious as he interrupted Stiles' thoughts.

Stiles didn't think Cody had ever seen anyone having a seizure if he thought that's what he'd just witnessed, but he didn't point that out. His momentary burst of clarity was giving him the idea that Cody was pretty much at loose ends right now and making his plans up on the fly. If he could get the other boy to see him as a person, even a mentally ill or damaged person, rather than simply a heartless monster, it might go better for him.

Stiles shook his head. "Panic attack," he murmured in response. "I... had a nightmare. I have them a lot. I black out sometimes. I... don't always wake up where I was when I fell asleep. Honestly, I thought that's what had happened at first when I woke up here," he admitted, his gaze seeking the floor. Cody wasn't going to believe the truth, he could at least try to paint a picture for him in which he was slightly less intentionally culpable in what had happened. Ironically, nothing he had said was even a lie.

"Hey, do you think you can pull my pants back up? It's kind of freezing in here," he added, shifting uncomfortably. It was chilly, although the feeling of vulnerability was actually worse.

Cody's gaze fixed on him, long and hard. "Is that what happened?" he finally demanded, ignoring the request. "You telling me you blacked out? You don't remember the hospital?"

Stiles ducked his head a little harder, shoulders curling up to his ears. This was a painful game to play, but it didn't matter, it was the only gamble he had left. "Maybe? I don't know," he whispered. "You say I was there, but I don't remember that, not at all. As far as I know I was with my friends... I remember being with them. They all swear I was; people even saw me with them. But you say different, so one of us is wrong and I just... I don't know, you tell me. How does one know what's real and what's not?" he whispered, hoarse voice cracking slightly.

"How do you know what's real when what you remember seems impossible? One of my friends died, you know, the day before," he continued in a whisper, not needing to specify before _what._ "Or I think it was the day before, anyway. She was stabbed. Just... bled out right there, in my best friend's arms before the ambulance could arrive and there was nothing we could do. I remember that, but I remember it being one of those Oni ninja bastards that killed her. Everybody else says it was a carjacking." Stiles shrugged again, once more glossing over a few details to protect those involved. "Who do I believe? You say I was at the hospital, other people and my own memory tells me I wasn't. Which of us is right? I told you what _I _remember happening. You don't believe me and I don't really blame you, but it's..." He shook his head helplessly. "It's what I remember. It's what happened; and it's crazy. So when the world stops making sense... what is truth, really, Cody? You tell me, because I don't know anymore."

Cody ran a hand through his hair, swearing wearily. "What a fucking mess," he muttered with equal parts irritation and exhaustion. He seemed seriously annoyed at not finding the situation as straightforward as he apparently wanted it to be and he rounded on Stiles, eyes flashing. "You think any of that excuses you? What you did?" he demanded.

Stiles met his gaze and just shook his head. "What you say I did? If it's true, then no," he whispered. "But I never wanted to hurt anybody. I never wanted that. If there was any way I could undo it all, I would." There was too much honest pain in his eyes for it to sound like a lie, no matter how angry and jaded Cody might be.

Cody swore again and paced a few times. "It doesn't change anything," he said harshly. "It doesn't change anything." Maybe it was only wishful thinking, but Stiles thought it sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as making a statement. He wasn't quite optimistic enough to hope that he could talk Cody into letting him go, but there was at least a small chance that if Cody thought he was mentally ill, at least he might not hurt him any more since that would be pointless. Still might kill him, but there was only so much Stiles could do and he was trying.

Time passed. Stiles lost track of how much. It felt like ages, although he knew better than to trust his own sense of time at this point. Miserable as he was, twenty minutes could have felt like hours.

Cody paced restlessly about, occasionally muttering to himself. He seemed lost and unsure of what to do next. Stiles would have liked to venture an opinion. He could think of at least four different paths Cody could take to get out of the situation he'd gotten himself in and achieve, if not his full goal, at least a pretty devastating revenge along the way. All of them sucked for Stiles and his father, however, so Stiles prudently kept his mouth shut. He was quite sure that attempting to convince Cody to turn himself in wasn't going to go over well either, and by now self-preservation and pain was trumping even his restless need to fill the stretching silence. A lingering anxiousness kept his heart rate elevated, but his weariness and aching head made his focus shift in and out. He might have dosed on and off, or he might have been having small bouts of unconsciousness, he didn't know and it didn't really matter.

When the distant whine of a siren first penetrated his groggy malaise, Stiles thought the sound was part of another dream. Then he struggled blearily back to a more lucid form of consciousness, and he realized it wasn't.


	5. Chapter 5

Cody appeared to have heard the siren as well. He moved quickly over to the window and looked out.

Stiles felt his heart jitter between hope and fear. He wanted desperately to be found, but wasn't sure how Cody would react to being cornered.

Face pressed to the window in an effort to see out through the grime-streaked pane, Cody muttered an agitated expletive.

"They could just be passing by," Stiles hazarded tentatively, unsure whether he wanted that to be true or not. There was the part of him that wanted his father to be coming for him, wanted it desperately, but there was also the well entrenched part of him that didn't want his father anywhere near danger... although, to be honest, Cody wasn't much of a threat to anyone but Stiles at present. It wasn't as if he were some supernatural beastie with claws and fangs.

Cody looked between his captive and the window uncertainly. "Yeah? Way out here?" he said skeptically, eyeing Stiles as if this were his fault. "Well maybe I'll just go see," he said at last. He disappeared from view and Stiles heard the creak of rusty hinges from somewhere behind him as the other boy slid out of the shed.

He gave his bound wrists a few perfunctory twists, just because, but he already knew he couldn't escape. The siren was still faint and far away. It really could just be a cruiser going by on some distant road for all he knew. Unlike Cody, he had no idea where they were and how likely it was or wasn't for them to hear random traffic.

It sounded like it was getting closer at first, but then it cut out and silence resumed, broken only by the calls of birds and the rustle of leaves from somewhere outside his dusty prison. Only when a profound, sinking sense of disappointment flowed through him did Stiles realize how much he had indeed been hoping it was someone looking for him.

A few minutes later, however, the door behind him banged back open and Cody came hurrying into view.

"They're coming this way," he said accusingly. "Two cop cars; I saw them take the turn, which means they're coming this way. There is no fucking reason for them to come this way unless they're coming here," he ranted, becoming increasingly agitated the more he spoke.

Stiles would have liked to argue; if only to try to calm Cody down, but with no grasp of where they were he had no position from which to refute his captor's assessment. Besides, if they were approaching and they'd cut the sirens... well, it did sound rather like they were advancing with a purpose.

Cody grabbed the hair on the back of Stiles' head, wrenching his neck back. "What did you do?!" he demanded. "How do they know where we are?!"

Stiles swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing visibly because of the way his throat was extended. "Me? In case you hadn't noticed I'm handcuffed around a freaking pole, Cody!" he retorted, hoarse voice squeaking and cracking a little around the words. "What the hell could I have done?! If they're actually coming here, maybe they traced the call you made. You know it's not like the old days anymore, right? It's not like in the movies where they have to keep someone on the line long enough to get a trace. GPS, man, it's a whole new world." When it works was a caveat Stiles didn't feel like including at the moment.

Cody let his head go with a vicious little shake. "Fine. Fine!" he said, his face and voice both edged with tension. "You know what? Just fine. Maybe it's better this way."

Stiles wasn't sure he liked the sound of that, or the slightly manic tone his kidnapper's voice was acquiring.

Cody disappeared from view for a minute before reappearing with the airsoft pistol he'd tried to threaten Stiles with earlier. "Think your dad is gonna be one of them?" he asked unpleasantly.

Stiles eyed the fake gun with some confusion. Privately, he thought it likely, but he wasn't going to say so. "Maybe," he hedged. "Cody, what are you doing with that? It's not even real, put it away."

Cody looked at him contemptuously and peered out the window, gun still in hand.

Stiles' brows furrowed. He knew the weapon was fake because he'd seen it up close and very personal. From a distance, however, it would be impossible to tell, especially if it was being pointed at you in a heated moment. This was a disaster waiting to happen.

Stiles shook his head, looking at the other boy incredulously. "Tell me you're not going to try to bluff them with that," he groaned. "Are you crazy? Pulling a gun on a cop is a really stupid idea, waving a fake one around is suicidal. Do you not watch TV? Are you trying to..." his voice trailed off as he really thought about what he'd just said and a seeping cold spread through him.

Cody was glaring at him and suddenly, Stiles understood. His eyes widened in a new, different kind of fear. "Oh god," he whispered. "You are. You stupid idiot, you seriously want to go try suicide by cop." He shook his head. "I just can't even - what are you thinking?! Look man, I know you're hurting, you miss her, believe me, I know, I lost my mom too, okay? It's been years and it still hurts, it still does. But she wouldn't want this, you know she wouldn't! From everything you've told me, she loved you. She'd want you to live, to have a future!" Stiles pleaded. It was an almost wholly unexpected surprise to him how much he suddenly found he didn't want this to happen.

He had every reason to hate Cody, and honestly he did, but that didn't mean he wanted him to die. He had seen entirely too much death of late. No matter how much he knew that rationally, none of the casualties could be laid directly at his feet, the fact remained that he already had so many lives weighing on him that to add one more felt like it would tear through the over-stretched fabric of his conscience. It was as if he could hear the laughter of the nogitsune from his dream still echoing through him, as if it really was still using him to create strife and pain and destroy people, even now. That was too raw a wound; pressing on it like this made him feel both ill and furious.

Cody looked at him, a dangerous numb calm starting to settle over his flushed, agitated features. "Well she's dead. What she wants doesn't matter anymore, does it?" he said darkly.

"Oh yeah?" Stiles was starting to sound angry in turn. "You don't care about your life? Fine. Okay. Go to hell for all I care, but what about everybody else? You're going to force some poor officer who is only trying to do their fucking job and keep everybody safe, to kill you. You think you're the only one who gets hurt? You think they won't have to carry that around for the rest of their lives? These are good people, they don't deserve that!" Okay, so Stiles was especially thinking of his father, who would almost certainly be among the first responders and who just as certainly would carry a kid like Cody on his conscience forever if the boy succeeded in making him pull the trigger in response to a fake threat.

"You wanna be a baby? You wanna just give up and quit because it hurts too much? You wanna go join your Mom, fine! Do it yourself, don't drag a bunch of innocent people into it." Stiles didn't want Cody to do that either, not really, but he was trying to buy time. He wanted to Cody to reconsider. He didn't want things to end like this. It was too horrible.

"That's not it," Cody hissed. "I'm not trying to go join her or anything. Dead is dead; but I am not just going to roll over and surrender so they can lock me up in some hell hole like I'm the criminal. Oh no, I don't think so. Cops arrest violent kidnapper, and even if you're dead you get all the sympathy, but cops shoot a kid with a toy gun and suddenly it's not all so neat and tidy, is it? People notice shit like that. The news loves that kind of thing and then higher up cops have to investigate or it all looks bad. Maybe that's what it will take to get the truth out, or maybe they'll cover it all up too, but what the hell, right? Last shot."

Stiles had to admit it made a certain sort of sense, even if only from an emotionally overwrought point of view. "Cody, dude, that's crazy! This isn't going to go like you want it to. Look... I know this is going to sound clichéd or like some kind of trick, but you can still walk away from this. I'm being straight with you, I swear. Let me go now. We'll walk out of here together and when the cops get here I'll tell them it was all a mistake or... like, it was some other dude that grabbed me and you found me and set me free. My dad will listen to me; we can work this out." Stiles knew it might not be that easy and that it was doubtful Cody could escape all repercussions of what he'd done, even if Stiles really wanted him to, which, if he were honest, he didn't. But he meant what he said, and he really would try if only Cody gave him the chance to do so. It was better than the possible alternatives.

Cody huffed his breath out, shooting Stiles a clearly disbelieving look. "Right," he said sarcastically. "I don't think so, I'm not stupid."

Stiles begged to differ. He rattled his bonds, hands wanting to gesture along with his grimace of pure frustration. "Oh my God! You are the most frustrating person I have ever met, you know that? And trust me, I know a lot of frustrating people, but dude, you take the cake. You come into this whole thing with less than half a plan, you change your mind every five minutes and your exit strategy makes as much sense as jumping out of a plane just to spite the airline! Are you mental?" Stiles rolled his head and eyes, grimacing in pain but too irritated and agitated to stop moving, or talking. "What am I saying? Of course you are. The suicide-kidnapper routine kinda gave that away I suppose."

Cody was ignoring his tirade in favor of going back to look out the door again. "You need therapy!" Stiles called after him. "Hey, I know a bad mental institution to not recommend and a counselor who may be able to help if she doesn't think she needs to kill you."

Cody slammed the door shut and stalked back to his prisoner. He grabbed the scruff of Stiles' shirt, tugging him back from the pole and making him squawk and shift painfully. "You know, I really don't need you alive anymore, do I?"

Stiles' mouth felt very dry again. "Um..." the awful truth was that Cody was more or less right about that. If he was determined to get himself killed, he had no further use of a hostage. "M-maybe you want to keep your options open?" Stiles suggested hopefully.

Cody let go and started rummaging around in the corner. It was the direction that he'd tossed the knife in earlier and Stiles felt his heart starting to race again. His fears were confirmed when the other boy came up with the blade a few moments later.

"You - you aren't really thinking this through again, Cody," Stiles babbled urgently, eyeing the weapon as the boy shoved the gun into the back of his pants to free his right hand for the knife.

"You go out there alone with a gun and they'll probably just, like, wing you, or shoot you in the leg or something to take you down and then arrest you anyway. They always try to do that, you know. They don't shoot to kill unless there's no choice, like, you know, if someone is in immediate danger. Someone like me," he continued as the desperate inspiration struck, running with the thin thread as far as he could. It was a weak argument, and not at all how he wanted this situation to go down, but there was at least enough sense in it to give Cody pause.

The younger boy seemed to consider for a moment before kneeling down by his captive. Stiles tried to pull away from him as far as he could, which wasn't far at all of course. Cody still had the knife clenched in one hand and Stiles felt his breath starting to come short again. He really didn't want to die. He didn't. Not like this.

However, Cody simply grabbed the waistband of his pajama pants and yanked them back up over his hips, re-clothing him at last.

Stiles yelped and grimaced, both at the pain of the soft elastic waistband pressing against his injuries and because Cody wasn't particularly careful about his package when he yanked the pants up. He was glad to be covered again, though. It didn't make him much warmer at this point, and the fabric resting against his welts did not feel great, but psychologically it was an improvement. If he was going to die, at least it wouldn't be half naked. At least his father wouldn't have to find him like that and assume all kinds of awful things. Oh God.

Stiles frowned in confusion when Cody followed up by pulling his ankles together and wrapping something around them. He couldn't see from his position, but the narrow loops felt rough around his bare ankles, like twine perhaps. Cody tied them tight before rising and moving around the pole in front of his captive.

Reaching into his pocket, Cody pulled something out. Stiles couldn't see what, but it must have been the handcuff keys because a moment later his left arm slid free to his side, Cody still holding onto the cuff about his right wrist.

Stiles reacted without conscious thought. He immediately tried to yank his right arm away from Cody, using his left hand to push back against the pole. He caught the other boy off-balance and Cody stumbled forward, losing hold of him. Stiles' backwards momentum carried him crashing to the floor on his side. Pain jarred through him, stealing his breath away. He struggled through it, attempting to pull himself around to some position where he could reach his bound feet. With his ankles tied together he couldn't get up, much less make a break for it. His limbs were numb and clumsy, stabbing with pins and needles after having been held so long in the same position.

Cody, in much better shape despite his level of sleep deprivation, was on him before he'd done more than get his numb fingers on the thick garden twine wrapped around his ankles. Stiles swung wildly at him and at least one punch connected solidly with the other boy's ribs, but Cody had all the advantage and one good punch to the face sent Stiles slamming back to the floor, the world blurring around him. Reality hazed over like breath on a chilly window pane. He was only vaguely aware of being rolled onto his stomach. Cody yanked his arms behind him and the cool bite of metal encircled both wrists once more as the handcuffs secured his arms behind his back.

"Well, shoot, that always works a lot better in Bond movies," Stiles muttered ruefully, and was mildly surprised by how slurred the words came out. He blinked, trying to clear his vision. Blood was trickling down his cheek. His nose was throbbing, but didn't hurt bad enough to be broken... probably. "And you're not really a Bond-level villain. I mean, you have the awful, compelling back story and all, but there's not even a tank of piranhas in here or anything, so that's not entirely fair and this really sucks," he added. He was vaguely aware that he probably wasn't making a lot of sense and should most likely shut up, but he felt no real inclination to do so.

Cody snorted as if Stiles amused him despite himself. At least he seemed to feel no need to punish his captive for the escape attempt, so Stiles was hazily ready to count that a sort of win at this point. Then Cody rolled him onto his back and Stiles was abruptly inclined to feel like that was punishment enough. He cried out as his body weight settled against his injuries, pressing raw welts and bruises against the unyielding floor. Enough time had passed that he'd stopped bleeding by now, but that same time had only served to let his bruises set and allow swelling to turn his injured flesh stiff, painful and incredibly sensitive.

Breathing raggedly, Stiles tried to roll back onto his stomach. Cody grabbed his shoulder and wouldn't let him, forcing him to stay where he was and endure the pain that was rapidly filling the bloodshot brown eyes with tears.

"You wanna live to play hostage, you should stop giving me reasons to kill you," Cody pointed out with irritation, which, to be fair, Stiles supposed was a valid point. He was fortunate that as unstable and angry as the other boy was, Cody hadn't done away with him half a dozen times by now. To be honest he was starting to suspect that either he was actually very lucky - which seemed to fly in the face of the established facts of his life to date - or that perhaps Cody was a little more hesitant to deal out death than he seemed. Perhaps the truth lay somewhere in between, but Stiles wasn't willing to trust either reason to hold indefinitely.

Outside, there was the growing sound of automobile engines in the near distance and then the crunch of tires on gravel. This was followed by the banging of car doors and the shuff-shuff of careful foot falls. They were attempting to be quiet, probably, but the birds had all fallen silent and every sound seemed to carry. Several people were out there, although Stiles couldn't tell exactly how many. He didn't know how they'd found him way out here, wherever here was, but somehow they had. Looking up at Cody's tense body and the storm clouds gathered in his bruised eyes, he felt like they were teetering on the brink of a precipice where a little tilt one way or the other would make all the difference between salvation and disaster.

"Stiles?" Stiles heard his father's voice warily calling his name.

Stiles almost called back, then stopped because he really didn't want to bring the officers to Cody any faster than necessary and set in motion the events he already saw tumbling out of control around him.

Cody had no such hesitation. He hunched down next to Stiles as if trying to stay out of sight of the window. "He's in here with me. Don't come any closer. I've got a gun."

Stiles made an exasperated face at how poorly Cody was serving his own ill-conceived ends. He clearly didn't know enough about police procedure to realize that by flat out lying to them about the gun, he was making anything that happened to him afterwards that much easier to clear up. If a suspect told you he was armed, you had no reason to assume otherwise. Not that that would help his dad any with the guilt.

"No -" Stiles started to shout that no he didn't, but Cody seemed to have anticipated something like that. He backhanded Stiles hard across the face, cutting him off. Stiles had been hit in the head a few too many times already and the world tilting sickeningly on its axis around him. By the time he'd managed to right it again, he found that Cody had pressed a thick strip of duct tape over his mouth.

"un uh hu hiiiich!" Stiles swore at him unintelligibly from behind the gag.

"Stiles!" the Sheriff's voice from outside was steady but tipped with a sharp edge of concern. Clearly, he'd recognized his son's voice trying to speak before being cut off by what could only have been violence. Great, just great.

"hmm hh hee he mm mmmhh!" Stiles tried to get Cody to let him tell his Dad he was okay, but Cody probably couldn't understand him.

"He's fine!" Cody called back instead, which was good, but probably less reassuring than if he'd allowed Stiles to do it. "Don't come any closer." Cody peeked out the bottom of the window again as if to make sure they were complying.

"Okay. We're staying put. Cody... right? Cody Wells?" The Sheriff's voice was calm now, soothing.

Cody stiffened and Stiles just rolled his eyes. Well, duh, did he think they wouldn't figure it out? The Sheriff's department was good at its job and it wasn't as if the kid was any kind of criminal mastermind, not by a long, looong shot.

"Cody, we're going to stay right here, all right? But can you do something for me, son? Can you let Stiles speak to us for a moment? To confirm he's all right?" Sheriff Stilinski pressed patiently when there was no answer from inside.

Stiles could tell that his father suspected he'd been trying to tell them something and was attempting to give him a chance to do so. He bored holes into Cody with his gaze, but the other teen just scowled and shook his head.

"No, sorry. He's okay, but I gagged him, he talks too much," Cody shot back. He was sweating profusely, the fake gun jiggling nervously in his hand as he attempted to gear up for his final standoff. He looked like he was starting to unravel under the strain of the situation he'd created.

"Yeah... I can't argue there," the Sheriff responded, allowing a thread of warmth into his voice.

Stiles could hear the hint of pained smile in his father's voice and he rolled his eyes. Thanks a lot, Dad, he mumbled indistinctly behind his gag.

"But Cody, we need to confirm he's in there with you and all right. Just let me talk with him for a moment, okay? Then we can discuss what you want. We can work this out," the Sheriff coaxed.

"What I want?" Cody shouted back, voice tense as his anger spiraled again, driven by the grief, nerves and agitation clearly building now to a peak as he hit the end stages of his plan, such as it was, abstract ideas now becoming uncertain reality.

"I want my mom back, but you can't give me that, can you? So I'll settle for a little fucking truth for a change!" he seethed, his gaze falling angrily back on Stiles again, his eyes glassy and smoldering as if he were again reliving the horror of lying in that hallway, watching his mother bleeding out, watching someone with Stiles' face stroll carelessly behind the masked murderers, surveying the carnage with a satisfied smirk that twisted his features into something cruel and capricious. All the anger and rage was coming back into Cody's gaze now and Stiles felt his heart sink. "You know what I want, Sheriff. Now you're just playing games. Very dangerous games."

"Your mother...? Cody..." The Sheriff's voice from outside was both wary and puzzled, but lost in his own hell, Cody wasn't listening.

"You want proof?" the teen snapped, gaze gone dark as pitch with the memories haunting him. Flipping the fake gun around in his grip, he used the butt as a bludgeon and struck Stiles viciously in the balls.

Trapped on his back, Stiles could see the blow coming, but couldn't escape it. The intent had clearly been to make him scream and it succeeded. The airsoft pistol was realistically weighted and the blow to that vulnerable area hurt like hell. They always made it look funny in movies, but it wasn't funny when it happened to you, not at all. Stiles screwed his eyes shut in pain, knees curling up as he rolled onto his side, sucking in hard, ragged breaths through his nose, struggling to breathe around the gag pinning his lips shut and the mucus clogging his airways from how much he'd cried recently. He cursed breathlessly and indignantly at Cody from behind the gag. Was that really necessary?!

Outside, the puzzled look fled instantly from the Sheriff's face at the sound of the short, muffled scream from inside the shed. Distorted though it was, the Sheriff still knew his boy's voice and the pain in the cry hazed red across his vision.

Inside the shed, above the pounding of blood in his ears and the wheezing rush of his own breath, Stiles heard the distinctive clicking sound of multiple gun safeties being shifted to the off position from outside. Cody was starting to lose himself to his rage again and hit Stiles a second time, despite having already adequately made his point. Stiles didn't let himself scream this time. He didn't really have enough oxygen to do so anyway. Instead he just curled up into an even smaller fetal position, pressing his cheek against the dusty floorboards. His face creased in agony as he stubbornly swallowed any further outcry. Oh God that hurt, that hurt, that hurt!

"Cody!" The Sheriff's voice was still even, but there was a hard edge to it now that he couldn't entirely hide. "Cody, don't do this. You don't need to hurt him. Nobody needs to get hurt, son. We can all walk away from this still. Everything will be okay, just don't hurt him."

Cody was obviously hitting the end of his rope and wanted to cut to the chase, perhaps before he lost his nerve. He used the knife to cut the ropes between Stiles' ankles and dragged him to his feet. Stiles wobbled, his bare feet stabbing with pins and needles and his legs feeling shaky and stiff. The pain throbbing through his groin made him double over, but Cody kept him upright. Looping one arm around Stiles' neck from behind, he pressed the fake gun to his head with the other. They were around the same height and Cody had to tilt his head a little to see around Stiles as he pushed him to the door, holding him human-shield style as he kicked it open.

Stiles stumbled over the threshold and Cody struggled to both support his weight and keep him moving. He limped as Cody pushed him forward onto the thin, ratty expanse of grass in front of the old shed. In the shadow of the shed, the sparse, prickly grass was cold and damp beneath his toes. He couldn't turn his head much, but got the vague, distracted impression that they were indeed surrounded by trees, as he'd thought. The lack of any other buildings within view and the partially overgrown, gutted hulks of abandoned washing machines and other detritus littered about suggested that whatever this area had once been, it had devolved over time into an unofficial dumping ground.

Light stabbed into his eyes and Stiles winced, blinking at the sudden illumination of daylight after the long period of semi-twilight indoors. Around the glaring brilliance, he made out that they were hedged in by a wide semi-circle comprised of about four cops, which was a pretty big force given how thin the department was spread right now. Stiles recognized Parrish and his father; he couldn't see the other two properly from where he stood without turning his head, an act made impossible by Cody's arm around his throat which was squeezing painfully against the wounds there and almost choking him.

Stiles grimaced. This whole scenario was ludicrous and had clearly not been thought through... like... at all. Whatwas Cody thinking? Stiles knewthe gun at his head wasn't real. Now that Cody had left the knife behind and they were outside with help easily in reach, what was supposed to stop him from struggling? He didn't feel up to doing much more than just falling down in his current condition, honestly, but it wasn't as if Cody could actually shoot him if he tried to get away. He didn't try though, because if he did and if in that moment of chaos Cody turned the fake weapon on the police... it was all too likely they would shoot him. They would have to. The recent attacks and losses so fresh in everyone's memories only increased that probability. You just couldn't take any chances in this town anymore and the Beacon Hills PD had been hit too often, too hard. Stiles frowned around a splitting headache, trying to figure out the best thing to do, how to make this work out in the least awful way possible.

In the back of his mind he heard the remembered echo of the nogitsune, crooning at him in amused pleasure like it had when they were in Derek's loft and it had come within inches of making his dad and Mr. Argent come to shots over him. Stiles had been fighting so hard inside and it hadn't made a lick of difference. He'd wanted to murder the creature for the way it was using him to play with his dad, and everybody else. The only sentiment it had uttered with which he had whole heartedly agreed was "shoot me".

Now Stiles suddenly felt like he was there all over again and sickness in his stomach was almost physical.

Stiles set his jaw and pushed all thoughts of the past and the nogitsune away from him. He wasn't helpless this time. Not the same way he had been then, at least. He didn't know what he could do, but he could do something. This situation could still be saved. The fallout would end and he would not be responsible for anymore dead or broken lives. He wouldn't.

The officers all had their guns drawn and were covering the two teens warily. Stiles saw the tightening around his father's eyes and realized he probably looked like shit. Face bruised and bloody, feet bare, hair and pajamas streaked with dust and dirt and blood. He locked eyes with his father, holding him with a steady gaze that was surprisingly devoid of fear. I'm okay. I'm okay, Dad. He willed him to understand.

The Sheriff's stance didn't change, but the lines eyes did relax just slightly. He may not know everything Stiles wanted to tell him, but he knew his son. He saw that Stiles was trying to pass on some kind of reassurance and, amazingly, he trusted him.

"I'm gonna kill him. You come through with the fucking tapes or I swear I'm going to kill him right here, I swear to God!" Cody was half shouting, half sobbing, the gun shaking in his hand at Stiles' temple. Whatever Cody thought he was doing, the younger teen was in fact visibly melting down. Stiles could see all the officers tightening in response to the boy's growing hysteria. Stiles struggled with his mouth, straining against the tape, desperate to tell them about the supposed gun before it was too late. Just walk up to us and freaking arrest him for God's sake...

Cody pushed Stiles a step forward, then pulled him back again, breath harsh against his neck. As Stiles struggled to keep his balance, he noticed another figure off to his father's right. Not lined up with the other officers but standing apart in the shadow of the tree line being cast by the afternoon sun.

Scott.

Scott was here. He was watching Stiles and Cody with an intent, single-minded focus that would be a little scary if Stiles didn't know him and wasn't so incredibly relieved to see him. Scott's stance was loose, ready for movement, fingers unconsciously curling inward at his sides like they did right before he popped claws. The faintest hint of alpha red flickered in the depths of his eyes, visible at this distance only because of the pool of shade in which he stood. It was a sure sign that Scott was on edge and poised for action. Stiles knew in that moment that his friend was watching for an opening, ready to make a break for him at supernatural speed the second he had one, or if it looked like things were starting to go south. Scott was obviously ready and willing to out himself in front of everyone present if it would save his friend.

Stiles didn't need saving, but he did need Scott. Focusing his attention on his friend, Stiles spoke softly in his throat, lips and tongue working as best they could behind the gag to complete the barely sub-vocal sounds. Scott would hear him. He knew he would.

"Scott, can you hear me? Scott, the gun is fake. I'm not in danger. He's trying to get himself killed. Don't let them shoot. It's fake!"

"Cody, Cody calm down, we can work this out," the Sheriff was saying, trying to sooth, voice reassuring and calm despite the tension clearly lining every muscle in his body. "I think you're working under some faulty assumptions here, son. Your mother -"

"Don't you talk about her! Don't try to tell me what she would and wouldn't have wanted, and don't you dare fucking lie to me again!" Cody shrieked. "No more lies!" He continued to agitatedly push Stiles forward and backward as if incapable of holding still. Still limping, dizzy and struggling with a constantly shifting center of balance, Stiles' foot snagged on a small hillock and he stumbled to the right just as Cody tried to wrench him to the left, resulting in him accidentally stumbling right out of the other boy's grip. Cody reacted instinctively, pulling the trigger on his weapon out of nerves and panic more than anything, most likely. The airsoft gun may not be "real" but it was loaded and the co2 cartridge discharged with a startlingly loud pop. Stiles felt the surprisingly painful sting of the small plastic pellet striking his neck and pinging off at close range, adding another little bleeding welt to his growing collection as he caught his balance just shy of falling.

Some part of his mind capable of processing things faster than thought knew that if it had been a real gun, he'd be dead right now, while another part of him knew that that's exactly what the trained police officers around them were going to be thinking had happened in this instant as well. The immediate, deeper retort of real gun fire made that fear a reality.

It was perhaps a convenient cliché to say that everything happened very fast after that, but the truth of the matter was that it did. Stiles heard, but only barely processed the sound of the shots, coming at more or less the same instant Scott was yelling for them not to fire. He couldn't say he acted on any actual conscious or coherent thought. If he'd really had time to think about it, he probably wouldn't have done it. Moving on some other, undefined instinct, Stiles managed to reverse his stumbling trajectory and threw himself back into Cody. Body-checking the younger boy, he sent them both tumbling to the ground in an effort to get out of the line of fire. The action had the unfortunate side-effect of placing Stiles directly between Cody and incoming bullets.


	6. Chapter 6

Traveling at over a thousand feet per second, there was no way the bullets aimed at Cody shouldn't have hit Stiles when he moved into their path, no way their tumble should actually have been fast enough to keep them from all harm, and yet both boys hit the hard earth with a jarring thud, and no bullet holes.

Breath completely knocked out of him by the force of the fall, his injured head pounding, Stiles struggled for consciousness, fighting to get air around the tape still covering his mouth. He'd landed partially on his side on top of Cody and for a moment he saw an image of the swimming world around him like it was a photograph or a freeze frame in time. Scott was holding Parrish's gun arm, obviously having deflected it skyward at the last moment. One of the other officers was quickly stooping to retrieve his own weapon from where it had been knocked out of his hand to the ground. The third cop was still holding her gun warily in front of her, covering them, but her gaze darted uncertainly between the boys on the ground and her fellow officers as if she wasn't entirely sure what had just happened.

"The gun isn't real, it's fake, it's fake!" Scott was saying urgently, speaking for Stiles the words he was incapable of speaking.

_God bless Scott and awesome werewolfy speed, _Stiles thought hazily. Somehow, Scott must have managed to disrupt the aim of everyone who had fired in time to make them miss. Parrish's face was white as a sheet. Clearly, he'd seen Stiles get in front of Cody in the split second it had been too late to take back the otherwise justified shot. Scott released his arm apologetically, but the slightly older man looked anything but offended. They'd all just narrowly avoided tragedy and no one was as yet entirely certain how.

Stiles would later find out that Easton and his father hadn't fired. Their initial positions had had Stiles too much between Easton and Cody for her to risk it. His father, like Parrish and Wilson, had had a perfectly clear shot, but he had trusted Scott enough to stay his hand at the last second, even when it looked like his son had just been shot in front of him. That had very possibly saved them all. Stiles was privately unsure Scott would have been able to deflect any more shots in the scant instants he'd had to react - two was already beyond amazing under these conditions.

"Hold fire, hold!" Stiles heard his father's voice bringing renewed order to the momentary chaos but his vision was going yellow and blotchy now. Consciousness wavered dangerously and Stiles slumped, lolling onto his stomach, as he lay sprawled on top of his recent kidnapper and torturer, whose life he had just saved. _Well, he might have had a little help, but still. Weird old world, wasn't it?_ One life couldn't really even the scales, couldn't wipe the ledger clean, to steal an expression from one of his favorite movies, but it was _something_.

Cody looked almost equally as breathless, his flushed face gone deathly pale as if in those last moments perhaps he had also realized, too late, that he didn't _actually_ want to die. The boy stared up at Stiles in shock, completely uncomprehending, probably having not even processed yet what had just happened.

Stiles grinned weakly at him. Or would have if his mouth wasn't still taped. Which sucked. Big time. That really needed to go. Like, _now. _

Stiles felt strong hands on his shoulders, rolling him off Cody and onto his back. He grimaced, cringing in agony as his raw back and butt pressed into the hard, uneven earth, but he wasn't lucid enough for the pain to register as strongly as it ought. Then his father was cradling his shoulders carefully and easing the tape off his mouth. He could finally breathe freely again and the cool winter air was just _delicious. _Stiles sucked in deep, greedy lungfuls until he made his head spin again for different reasons. He coughed, trying to breathe too much all at once and his father's hand pressed reassuringly against his chest. "Slowly, slowly, Stiles, it's okay, I've got you. It's okay."

Stiles rolled onto his side to escape the pain of lying flat. His father helped him, appearing to think it was because of his difficulty breathing. Stiles' dark pajamas hid most blood stains from a casual glance, making them indistinguishable from any other type of dirt.

His mind was clearing a little and Stiles tried to get to his knees. The movement was too fast. He wobbled and his father caught his shoulders, supporting him. Thankfully, his upper shoulders were in fairly okay shape, all things considered, and Stiles simply leaned into his support. He looked over and saw that Parrish and Easton had rolled an unresisting Cody onto his stomach and were handcuffing his wrist behind him while reciting his Miranda rights. The third officer, whom he now recognized as a man named Wilson, had picked up Cody's gun and was studying it.

Cody was sobbing softly. Stiles wasn't sure if he was upset he was still alive, or just overwrought by everything. He supposed he may not have done the kid any favors, keeping him alive if he didn't want to be, but, well tough, _you didn't always get what you wanted, did you?_

"Fake," Stiles rasped, surprised to find his voice so hoarse. He swallowed several times to try to ease it. "It's not real. H-he wanted to make you kill him," he whispered. "His mom was killed ... at the hospital. Dad, he's kind of... he needs help."

The Sherriff hugged his son to him a little tighter. He did not look particularly inclined to be at all forgiving about anything that had just happened, but he nodded nevertheless. "I understand," he assured.

Wilson, still holding Cody's pistol looked over at the Sheriff, confirming Stiles' words with a nod. "He's right sir, it's a toy." He opened the top chamber and spilled a handful of tiny, bright yellow pellets into his palm.

"Holy shit," Easton murmured. All the officers looked a little shaken by this, by what had almost happened. Parrish met his boss' gaze earnestly over Cody's shoulder as they pulled the weeping teen up to his knees. "Sir, I'm sorry. I should have ... it _looked_ real."

The Sheriff shook his head. No one had reacted inappropriately for the apparent danger level of the situation. His own heart was still in his throat. When he'd seen Stiles stumble and heard that gun go off by his head at point blank range... he'd really thought Stiles was dead. He'd really thought he'd lost him. His hands shook just a little as they gripped his boy gently tight. "There's no way could you have known otherwise, Parrish, no way any of us could have." His voice was steadier than his grip. "It was a good shoot that _thank God_ missed both boys when they went down. The important thing is that everyone is all right. Let's get Wells back to the station and sort things out there."

The deputies exchanged glances, perhaps not entirely sure how exactly that _missing_ part had happened, or how exactly the teenager that their boss had inexplicably brought along had known about the gun before they did. Easton was sneaking funny glances at Scott, but the Sheriff's tone made it clear that _this was what had happened _and they seemed to accept that, at least for now. Solving one problem always seemed to open another dozen cans of worms lately, but tragedy had been averted, and for the moment that was enough.

John shook his head, unconsciously stroking Stiles' shoulder, even as his gaze remained on Cody as he was half dragged, half guided to his feet. "Son, what you did was incredibly stupid," he told Cody firmly. "It was more stupid and just about pointlessly tragic than you even know. As I _tried _to tell you before, you seem to be under the mistaken impression that your mother is dead. Cody, your aunt Trudy has been looking everywhere for you. She even filed a missing persons report this morning. You took off yesterday before she could give you the good news. Your mom _survived _the surgery. She's still in critical condition, but her chances are good. Trudy's with her now, she woke up a few hours ago. She's _alive, _Cody, and if my son wasn't a damn brave idiot, you _wouldn't _be. You think about that."

Cody was gaping at him like a fish. "She... What?" he whispered. He shook his head violently, unable to handle the crashing and folding of the world as he thought he knew it. "No! But... H-how... I mean... Oh my God..." the kid crumbled, knees going weak, the shock and confusion too much for his overwrought state.

Parrish and the Easton half supported, half carried him to one of the squad cars. "Sir, should I call an ambulance?" Wilson asked, looking down at Stiles' battered form.

"No," the Sheriff shook his head. "It'll be faster if I just take him. You go on with Parrish and Easton. Keep an eye on that kid, make sure he doesn't try to hurt himself or do some other stupid thing today. Let Ms. Garston know we found him, and that he's going to need a lawyer."

Wilson nodded and left as John's attention focused back on his boy. "Stiles, where are you hurt?" he asked gently, hand lightly probing down the front of his son's chest, stomach and legs for any dangerous hidden wounds. He was looking in the wrong places, but Stiles didn't correct him.

"I'm fine," Stiles mumbled, not wanting to tell him exactly where or how Cody had hurt him. It felt embarrassing for some reason. "My head feels like shit, but I'm okay."

Quickly extracting a handcuff key from one of the pockets on his belt, Stiles' father helped him lean forward a little so he could unlock his bloodied wrists.

Stiles wobbled again, the position placing intensely painful pressure on his hurting rear. Scott steadied him this time, supporting him as his father worked the handcuffs free. The pain disappeared almost immediately and Stiles sighed in relief before tensing up again and looking down, unsurprised to see the black lines pulsing up Scott's hand from where he gripped his friend's forearm. He tried to pull away. He couldn't feel right about Scott taking his pain. He wasn't sure he could ever feel right about it after what he remembered doing, even if it hadn't been him. Scott just tightened his hold, giving Stiles a fondly exasperated look as if he understood too well what was going on in his head.

"Do me a favor, don't be an idiot," Scott murmured affectionately against his friend's blood and dirt streaked hair. His face was lined with concern at the amount of pain he was drawing. Stiles also probably reeked of blood which wouldn't make him very happy either.

"Can't help it," Stiles murmured sarcastically, although he did relax and allow Scott to leach away his pain. It felt really good. "It's my default setting, right Dad? Is his mom really okay?" He asked, gaze turning back to his father as the older Stilinski wrapped an arm around him and carefully leveraged him to his feet. Stiles found he could stand, as long as he had his Dad or Scott to balance against. "Cody said she died." He was feeling dizzy and confused. He was really glad to hear otherwise, but it just didn't make sense. Cody had been so damn _sure. _

The Sheriff nodded, hand cupping Stiles' shoulder gently as he helped him walk. "That's what her sister Trudy told me when I spoke to her. Diana Wells _was _injured in the attack on the hospital and has been undergoing treatments ever since. There were some kind of complications and I guess it was very touch and go. There was a pretty good chance she wouldn't make it. Trudy isn't sure what happened. She and Cody were waiting at the hospital. I guess Cody went to get a drink or something and then never came back. So he wasn't there when the doctor came and told her the surgery was a success. She tried to find him, called his cell repeatedly, but he was just gone. When he didn't show up by morning, she filed a missing persons report," he explained as he helped Stiles towards the remaining cruiser, Scott hovering along by his other side.

The elder Stilinski shook his head, perplexed. "We figured out he was the one who had you after the call. We couldn't get any decent kind of triangulation on the signal out here, but Scott caught your scent and guided me in," he nodded to the other teen, which explained how his friend had come to be there in the first place. "What I _don't_ understand is why Cody thought his mother was dead. Why would he run off from the hospital and go after you without even waiting for results of the surgery?"

Stiles laughed, sounding a bit manic. He _did_ understand, and it was all so horribly, awfully funny. "L-Let me guess, when his aunt heard the good news she was so relieved she broke down sobbing?" He shook his head. "Oh my God, what a clusterf... mess," he adjusted his language at the last moment to something more parentally approved.

Stiles' father looked worried at his son's slightly hysterical mirth. Whatever Stiles had been through in the past hours had obviously taken a toll. "Stiles?"

Stiles shook his head. Cody must have expected the worst, and therefore seen it where it didn't exist. "Cody was outside the glass doors, I think. He saw the doc, saw his aunt break down and he... _assumed_," he explained. They'd reached the car. He held onto the roof while his dad got the door for him. John then walked around to get in the driver's side. Stiles hesitated in the car doorway, steeling himself to get in. The numbness Scott had gifted him earlier was starting to fade and he hurt in places that was going to make sitting a bitch.

"And so he suddenly decided that kidnapping you and trying to get the police to kill him was a great idea?" Scott asked with a frown, sounding somewhat confused.

"He was at the hospital when the Oni came through," Stiles said quietly, not meeting his friend's gaze. He gave a small shrug, unsure how much his father had or hadn't told him already. "Only it wasn't just the Oni. The nogitsune went with them. It looked like me. Cody saw it. He later found out I'm the Sheriff's kid, and that the hospital security tapes mysteriously turned up missing when the police came for them. He put the pieces together and didn't like the way they looked. He blamed me for it all, so, you know, only partially wrong," he tried to make light.

Scott cursed softly in understanding, sounding surprisingly angry. Stiles hazarded a startled glance up only to find himself being enveloped in a tight hug, right there in front of the open car door.

"Not _partially_ wrong, _all _wrong," Scott hissed fiercely in his ear. "No part of that monster was you. I don't care what face it wore, or what memories it gave you."

Scott's grip was shockingly tight and honestly rather painful, but Stiles found he had no desire to pull away. He held on loosely in return, letting his forehead rest against Scott's shoulder. He knew what his friend said was true. He knew it, but it helped to have someone else say it. Someone he trusted. Especially after having withstood the vitriol of Cody's anger and blame burning in those only partially healed wounds for the past several hours.

"Stiles, please... please tell me that's not why you stepped in front of those bullets," Scott whispered hoarsely in his best friend's ear. "Please tell me it wasn't because you feel like you have to make up for things that _it _did?"

Stiles realized with a jolt that Scott sounded _scared__. _"No!" he protested immediately, pulling back enough to meet Scott's gaze. Then he hesitated. "Maybe?" he amended more honestly in a whisper. "I... I don't know. I think... no, I wasn't thinking, really. You're the stupidly brave one, I'm just the stupidly stupid one, you know? I didn't think it through, I just reacted. Good job with the Quicksilver routine by the way," he grinned lopsidedly, then shifted a little uncomfortably under Scott's still much too intense gaze. "It's not wrong to want no more people dead for a little while, is it?"

Scott touched their foreheads together and Stiles realized the other boy's eyes were glistening wetly. "No," he whispered. "Of course not. Just... try to keep the stupid stuff to a minimum? I don't want _you _dead either. Stiles, I can't... don't go anywhere on me, okay?" Scott's voice was surprisingly raw around the edges and Stiles supposed he knew why. His hands fisted lightly in Scott's shirt, taking comfort and trying to give it at the same time.

"Okay," he whispered back, giving a small smile and trying to dispel the pain. "I'll leave all the stupid for you. Deal?"

"Deal," Scott agreed, returning his smile and finally stepping back so Stiles could get in the car.

Stiles eased himself carefully down into the seat. He thought he was prepared, but he wasn't. He jerked forward as his weight settled painfully on his torn flesh, cursing and grabbing the dash as he tried to rock up enough to make it stop _burning_. _"Fuck, fuck, fuck..." _he gasped, almost sobbing and struggling with the urge to jump back out of the car. The urge won and he scrambled back out, clutching the top of the window frame and breathing sharply through his mouth as he waited for the agony to stop.

_Well, crap. So much for not letting them know where he was hurt. _He supposed they would have found out at the hospital anyway, but that didn't mean he was happy about it.

"Stiles?" Scott and his Dad both asked at the same time. Scott had been getting in the back seat, but popped back out quickly. The Sheriff likewise abandoned the driver's seat to come around the car to his son.

"It's nothing, I'm fine, I'm fine, just... _fuck,_" Stiles gave up, hanging his head and clinging to the car door as his father moved behind him and pushed up the back of his tee. There was total silence now behind him and Stiles felt himself flushing hotly. John gently hooked his fingers in the back of his son's pajama pants and easily pulled the loose material out enough to peer down the back and see the injuries hidden beneath.

Stiles squeaked and spun around, stumbling slightly and turning his back protectively towards the door behind him. _"Daaad!"_

"_That _is not fine," the Sheriff said with a mixture of seething anger and anguished softness in his eyes. "Stiles, what the hell did he _do_?"

Stiles looked at the grass. "You saw, that's it. He was pretty pissed off and thought I was lying to him. He... uh... he wanted to use a bat on me, but, um, I don't think he was ready for how messy that would be? He's got scars; he was abused to hell before he got adopted, so, uh, this was his next choice." Stiles shrugged. "Better than the alternative," he said pragmatically. "Hurts, like a mother though."

The Sheriff closed his eyes, breathing slowly. He cupped his hand around the back of Stiles' neck and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Okay, okay... we're going to get you to the hospital, you'll be okay," he murmured, as much for himself as for Stiles. "Would it be better for you to ride in the back? Lay down on the seat on your stomach? Or do you want me to call that ambulance?"

Stiles grimaced uncertainly. He definitely didn't want to wait around for an ambulance, and then have a bunch of EMTs gawking at his injuries. The ER docs would be bad enough. However, and he absolutely _wasn't _going to mention this, his privates were aching pretty badly still from where Cody had nailed him and he wasn't so sure about pressing them against a hard, jostling car seat the whole ride either. "Nah... I think I'll just... um... I can do this..." he got back in the car and was immediately curled up by the dash again. "Ohh... fuck, fuck, no, I can't," he groaned miserably.

Then suddenly... the pain was just gone.

"I've got him," Scott said quietly from the back seat. The partition between the seats was down and he was reaching around the car's headrest. He squeezed the side of Stiles' neck and shoulder as he once more drew away the pain.

Stiles settled hesitantly back in the seat, no longer feeling like it was a bed of hot coals. He looked over his shoulder at Scott gratefully but uncertainly. "You can't pain-drain me the whole way to the hospital, Scott."

Scott looked at him innocently around a face tense with the hurt he was absorbing into himself. "Why not? I've got him. Let's go," he repeated to the elder Stilinski, who hesitated only a moment longer before closing the car doors on them and hurrying around to the driver's seat. He turned on the siren and made it to the hospital as fast as he could.

Despite occasional protests, Scott kept hold of Stiles the whole way there. He was more than a little ashen by the time they arrived and honestly looked kind of ill, but he insisted he was fine and the three of them all walked into the ER on their own power.

The torn welts and bruises from the beating Stiles had taken were certainly painful, but not dangerous, as was the case with most of the injuries he'd sustained. The most serious thing his encounter with Cody had left him with was a concussion, but overall he'd taken no lasting damage. No serious injuries + no dead bodies put the whole affair firmly in the win column as far as Stiles was concerned.

The hospital kept him overnight for observation and Melissa checked in on him frequently until her shift ended. They kept Stiles awake initially because of the concussion, but he was beyond exhausted. He kept drifting out and eventually was allowed to sleep.

_Stiles was walking down the hospital corridor again, searching for something, he wasn't sure what. Blood streaked the walls, although there was no bodies this time. There was nothing. He was alone in the vast, echoing space, like he was the only person left alive. He stumbled forward faster, wanting to call out but finding his throat dead and unresponsive to any attempt to make sound. His knees hit something and he tumbled forward... _

The shock of pain brought him to his senses, but Stiles still found himself lying sprawled on tiled floor of the deserted hospital corridor. His heart was pounding and his shins stinging. He scrambled upright, looking around with wide-eyes and trying to figure out what was happening. A chair. He'd tripped over chair pushed back against one wall.

The lights in the hall were dimmed a little and his breathing was the only thing filling the empty space, but there was no blood on the walls now. Stiles took a slow, shaky breath, turning in a circle and gripping his arms to him as he tried to wake up. Or was he already awake? _Oh God, he didn't know._

His welted back and butt throbbed angrily at him, his thighs burning, which he hadn't been aware of before. Did that mean he was awake now, or was it just part of the dream? Shakily, he lifted his hands and urgently counted his fingers. Five on each hand. He counted both twice, then noticed the empty cannula taped to the back of one hand. He blinked at it. He hadn't been hooked up to any machines that he recalled, but they did have him on an IV drip for dehydration. He didn't remember detaching himself from it, or leaving his room at all, but that's obviously what must have happened.

Wiping a weary hand down his face, Stiles struggled to bring his breathing under control. He'd just been sleepwalking. Honest to God, normal sleep walking. Well, okay, maybe there wasn't anything all that _normal _about it, but you had to take these things in context. He'd been dreaming about the hospital because he was in fact _in _the hospital, after all.

The sound of footsteps from somewhere behind him instinctively sent him hurrying quietly into an empty and fortunately unlocked exam room. He stayed there until the unfamiliar man in nurse scrubs passed by without incident. Then he finally crept back into the hall and looked around for signs, trying to figure out where in the hospital he actually was. He should probably get back to his room in case anyone looked in. He'd likely not been missed already or run into anyone else yet on his somnambulate stroll simply because, like the police department, the hospital had been sorely drained of staff lately. Plus, he knew from experience that the wards were locked at night. They were guarded on their outside entry points, but left relatively empty aside from sleeping patients and the few night staff on the inside.

Despite not wanting to be found wandering about because he didn't feel like explaining or risking having anyone report to his father that he had been sleepwalking again, Stiles still felt an oppressive sense of isolation pressing down on him. His heart continued to beat too fast in his chest and he couldn't entirely convince himself that he wasn't still dreaming. He also wasn't sure where he was going. He realized he had no idea what room he'd been in, or where it was. He was pretty familiar with the hospital due to coming here with Scott over the years, but all the hallways looked alike without a reference point.

He kept wandering until he found a nurse's station. Signs on the wall helped him orient himself to where in the hospital he currently was, but there was a nurse currently at the station, so he stayed out of sight around the corner. Asking for help might be the easiest path, but it would require the explaining thing and he just... he wasn't ready to do that. Fortunately, the woman left a minute or two later, disappearing down the hall the opposite direction to do whatever nursely things it was she had to do.

Once she was gone, Stiles slid around the corner and over to the desk, looking for some kind of patient charts or something that might give him a clue where the hell he was supposed to be. He found a clipboard with a bunch of notations on it that looked like gibberish to him. Maybe it was a medication or scheduling reference, or some other thing he didn't understand, but fortunately for him there were last names and room numbers on it. He scanned down to the "S" section and was relieved to find himself there. He made note of his room number, but then instead of putting the chart down, he found himself turning the page to the "W" section. He knew he probably shouldn't, but curiosity drew him. It was a long stretch that she'd even be on here, but... but she was. _D. Wells. _listed with a room letter and number combo that belonged to the ICU wing.

Stiles put down the chart and tiptoed quietly away. Despite knowing what he _should_ do, going back to his room held little real appeal to him now that he knew where it was. He was hurting pretty badly and no longer sleepy. They'd given him oral pain killers last night, but none of the stronger stuff because of his concussion. He'd also had none of his ADHD meds yet for the same reasons, meaning he'd been over 24 hours without now and he could feel the jittery fingers of withdrawal plucking with growing insistence at the edges of his awareness. Right now it seemed to him that any activity was better than just sitting around and hurting in the middle of a much too quiet hospital full of ghosts. _Figurative_ ghosts, that was... he certainly _hoped _there weren't any real ones, although it wouldn't have surprised him in the least.

He had no intention of doing anything like actually bothering Mrs. Wells, who would no doubt be sleeping at this hour, but he told himself it couldn't hurt just to go by her room and make sure she was really there. It all seemed somewhat dreamlike to him right now as he wandered about the dim, empty hospital hallways that he seemed to see both waking and sleeping. He was sure his father said the woman had actually made it, but... but he had such strong, violent memories of Cody berating him for her death, of seeing her bleeding out even though he couldn't possibly have actually seen it... he just wanted to check. To make sure that her survival hadn't only been part of the dream and that nothing else had happened in the meantime. It was better than doing nothing.

Stiles actually made it all the way to her room in the next wing without being discovered. He wasn't sure if it was supposed to be this easy to glide about unnoticed or if this was an unusual case due to the short staffing. Maybe he was just being super ninja about it... Stiles winced, shying away from the images that that mental turn of phrase accidentally brought with it.

He stared at the closed door, loitering uncertainly. He hadn't really had a plan beyond seeing if he could make it over here. There was a long glass window that made up one wall of the room, but thick curtains were drawn across it and he couldn't see in. There was no way for him to be sure that Diana Wells was actually inside, but he wasn't about to risk disturbing her by poking his head in just to find out. He realized that he did want to see her, though, if only for a moment. There was a part of him that wanted to know... _needed _to know if she looked like she had looked in his dreams.

He'd never seen the woman before; not even a picture. He should not know what she looked like and yet he'd seen her clearly in his nightmares. He wanted to know if that was just his mind making something up... or if he did actually possess some portion of the nogitsune's memories from _after_ they were split into separate versions of his body. He needed to know if it were possible that even separated physically from him, it was still able to touch his mind. The question and its possible implications scared him, honestly, but that just made him all the more anxious to know the answer, one way or the other.

Finally, Stiles turned away from the still, silent door. He was starting to get cold and he ached all over. He wasn't accomplishing anything here and he could surely find a picture of Mrs. Wells online somewhere, or maybe the police had one and he'd ask his dad about it tomorrow.

Stiles had just started to shuffle painfully away, when a soft clattering noise followed by a stifled sound of both pain and distress came from behind the closed door across from him, freezing him in his tracks.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:**_I conceived and started writing this story before the start of Season 4, so it is of course AU from the events of the S4 timeline. Most of it isn't _**_too _**_AU, but this chapter becomes so because in my story Derek was either never kidnapped or is already back, Isaac didn't leave and Chris either didn't leave or is already back. Likewise, no Malia or Liam because I knew little to nothing about their characters when this started. None of these factors play a very large role in the story since we don't actually see all of them, but it's worth mentioning so there's no confusion._

* * *

Perhaps more on edge than he might have realized, Stiles literally jumped at the sudden sound from behind the closed door beside him, despite how soft it actually was. Reacting without thinking, he threw open the door and hurried into the room, looking for the source of the problem.

He found himself in room that looked like most of the other rooms in the hospital, except for the larger than usual bevy of machines clustered around the bed. There was a woman lying there. She had dark black hair and an almost alarming number of tubes snaking about her body. She looked quite exhausted and drawn, but her dark eyes were open and bright with either alertness or pain.

For just a moment, Stiles saw a different woman, in a different hospital bed – one whose eyes were shut, never to open again no matter how he held her hand and pleaded with her to wake. He shook the painful old memory off quickly and ascertained that the sound he'd heard had not, in fact, been a harbinger of some new life threatening disaster. It had probably been caused by the woman accidentally knocking over one of those little metal, kidney-shaped dishes that medical institutions seemed so fond of using for everything. The dish was lying overturned on the floor beside the bed, along with a camelbak water thermos, which, Stiles realized as he automatically stooped to retrieve both articles, was probably what the woman had been trying to reach when the accident occurred. There was a shiny slick of water sprayed across the floor that had probably been made on impact judging by its shape, although the thermos wasn't leaking much now, despite lying on its side.

"Are you okay? Is everything all right?" he asked with concern as he set the dish back on the bedside tray, holding the wet thermos bottle uncertainly. His voice came out scratchier than he'd expected. He was vaguely aware of the door swinging back on its own momentum and clicking quietly shut behind him.

"Water," the woman murmured; her voice steady but very soft. She gestured her hand weakly in the direction of the bottle he was holding, confirming his suspicion.

Stiles fumbled with the bottle for a moment before he figured out that a portion of the lid actually became a straw when you slid it all the way back into place, unsealing the bottle and making a handy apparatus for drinking while lying down. He wasn't sure if this was standard hospital issue, or if a family member had left it for her, but it seemed a pretty ingenious idea to him.

He handed her the bottle carefully, then ended up helping the woman hold it steady so she could drink when her own grip proved too tremulous. Moving closer to the bed, Stiles felt the water on the ground seep into his socks as he accidentally tracked through it. Carefully supporting the weight of the thermos, he watched the woman as she swallowed gratefully. He was relieved to find that she looked very little like the person he'd seen in his dream. So, sometimes dreams were just dreams then. He almost smiled.

"Thank you, but you're not a nurse," Diana Wells said after he'd set the water back on the bedside tray, her gaze fixing astutely on his very visible injuries. Even in the dim illumination of the room's nightlight the dark bruising on his face was apparent. White pads and tape bandages stood out starkly against one temple and gauze carefully wrapped his neck and both wrists. His fingers were bruised and scraped raw from his many attempts to claw his way free; the scratches dark against his pale skin beneath the dull sheen of dried liquid bandage coating them. He looked like a mess and he knew it.

"You're a patient?" she prompted quizzically, looking him over as she licked her dry, cracked lips wearily. The stupid powder blue hospital gown he was wearing probably would have given it away even if the injuries hadn't.

Stiles saw her gaze settle on his hands and dropped them self-consciously out of sight. He knew they should have been wrapped up more thoroughly, just like his scalp wounds, and the reason they weren't was embarrassing. In the ER, things hadn't gone so well when the doctor treating him had initially tried to apply the dressings. Shaken and disorientated once all adrenaline had deserted him, Stiles had completely freaked out when they attempted to wind bandages around his head and hands, clawing at the gauze to get it away from him, much to the poor young doctor's complete confusion. Fortunately, Mrs. McCall had been there. She had understood the problem at once and been quick to suggest alternatives. Stiles appreciated that deeply, although he felt stupid that it had been necessary. He knew it was pointless to react so badly to something that was totally benign on its own merits, but that didn't seem to matter. No amount of self-ridicule could change the fact that the idea of looking down and seeing his fingers grown thick with layers of gauze or feeling the familiar, scratchy pressure of bandages around his head filled him with horror. Maybe one day it wouldn't, but today wasn't that day.

Stiles didn't realize he'd hesitated a little too long in answering for it to seem natural until the woman frowned at him thoughtfully. "Do I ... know you?"

His relief faded abruptly at those words, replaced by a strong, sudden desire to bolt. He took a quick step backward, his voice momentarily frozen by the complete and utter awkwardness of the situation he'd gotten himself into. He should never have come in here. It was entirely possible that Mrs. Wells had seen the nogitsune in his form, same as Cody. Even if she hadn't; he was still going to be the reason her son would probably end up getting sent to juvie or worse. What on earth could he possibly say to this woman who had every right to hate him? Stiles was by nature usually pretty thick-skinned about what people outside his inner circle thought about him and under normal circumstances he might not have cared very much. However, recent experiences had taken their toll and he suddenly found he wasn't physically or emotionally ready to handle any more approbation right now.

"No! I ... uh, I mean no, I'm not and yes I am and no you don't," he said in a fairly unhelpful rush, finally ungluing his mouth. He mustn't have been hiding his feelings at all well, because woman's expression shifted from curious to concerned as she took in his change in demeanor and sudden withdrawal.

"I was just, um... passing by and I heard you and I just wanted to make sure you were okay, which you are, so I'll just be going now..." Stiles pressed on, edging back towards the door behind him.

"You were just passing by at -" the woman glanced at the clock on the wall, squinting as if her vision weren't terribly clear. "3am in the morning?" Despite her infirmity, she gave him a distinctly incredulous look of the type honed by those involved in raising teenagers.

Stiles shrugged. "Couldn't sleep, was looking for a vending machine. The food here sucks, you know," he said lightly. "So, anyway, like I said, I'll just go..." he over-gestured in something close to a flail before quickly turning and grabbing for the door handle. Unfortunately, he misjudged the distance between himself and the door and his hand closed on empty air. Unbalanced, he stumbled forward a step, his wet socks sliding on the tile floor. Lurching forward, he only just caught himself against the door, falling un-gracefully to one knee but managing to not go down completely.

It wasn't a serious spill, but the floor was hard and pain shot up his thigh from the impact. Stiles automatically rolled sideways to sit on the floor with his back against the door in order to rub his smarting kneecap, but that was a mistake because his back and rear were still far from all right with him putting any pressure on the healing injuries, meds or no.

He inhaled sharply, pained tears rising unbidden to his eyes and quickly rolled back to his knees instead. He pulled himself somewhat stiffly back up the door with a grimace and a wince. Glancing over his shoulder as he held onto the door for support for a moment, he found Mrs. Wells leaning her head forward and watching him in keen concern. He realized with an unhappy flush that the stupid, back-fastening hospital gown had shifted open some along it's back seam due to his abrupt movements, revealing his bruised, welted flesh and the large swaths of gauze which covered the worst of the cuts. The gown wasn't as totally useless as those awful paper ones they used for exams, it was cloth and generally kept him perfectly decent, but it was still thin protection against observant eyes. He turned around quickly, putting his back to the door and trying to tug the gown back into place.

He could see in the woman's eyes that she'd seen the bandages and injuries both. There was a soft glitter of horror and compassion in her gaze that he couldn't bring himself to meet.

"Are you all right?" she asked quietly, her hand straying towards the call button beside her.

"Fine! I'm fine! Just, you know, _really _graceful," Stiles assured a little too quickly. The _last _thing he wanted her to do was call the duty nurse.

"Are you sure? You're bleeding," Mrs. Well's voice was still quiet.

Stiles' eyebrows shot up and he instinctively felt behind him, as if that would be able to tell him anything. He stopped when he realized that wasn't helping and just shrugged a little instead, as much as he could without it hurting too badly. "Probably old, from earlier. I'm okay, really. Please don't call anybody."

The woman on the bed looked like she was about to say something more, but when she opened her mouth she coughed instead, wincing at the motion.

Firmly on his feet on once more, Stiles was preparing to make good on his escape, only Mrs. Wells didn't stop coughing. Her face creased with agony as the convulsions shook her. He hesitated uncertainly hands fluttering at his sides as he tried to figure out what to do. Was this normal, or did she need help? His instinct to retreat was momentarily checked by the stronger impulse to be sure the woman wasn't in danger.

"Hand me ... the water ... again?" Mrs. Wells choked out after a moment, her hand pressed to her chest as she obviously tried to calm the hacking spasms which obviously caused her significant pain.

Stiles hurried to do so, supporting the thermos for her once more so she could get little sips around her coughing until the fit finally subsided. The woman's face was flushed and her breathing labored.

Stiles' fingers played anxiously against the water bottle as he stood by; holding it and waiting in case she needed more. "Sorry," he murmured. "Didn't mean to, like, make you over excited or anything."

She shook her head minutely. "You didn't. Been... happening all night. I was intubated yesterday, throat hurts," she murmured. "Chest hurts, everything hurts," she added with a weak, wry hint of a commiserating grin. "You want to sleep but you can't. There's nothing on TV but infomercials and nothing to do but worry about things you can't do anything about... being in the hospital sucks, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," Stiles agreed with a rueful little return smile. "It does." The older woman opened her mouth again in signal and he obligingly placed the straw between her lips and let her drink some more. When she was done she sighed and settled back, obviously done for the moment. Stiles sized up the bedside table, trying to decide the best place to leave the bottle where she could reach it next time.

"Do you have to go right away?" she whispered hoarsely as if reading what he was about in his eyes. "Why not stay a little, talk with me? I promise if anybody finds us, I'll tell them it was my fault and you were just trying to help me. You won't get in trouble," she coaxed as if accurately having guessed at least part of his concern.

Stiles eyed her warily. By now he had decided that she mustn't recognize him after all, but she seemed so weak and exhausted, he had to wonder how much she actually wanted company right now. He certainly could understand the boredom of being completely bed-bound like this, but he also more than half-way suspected that despite what she said, the older woman wanted him to stay for his sake as much as hers. He could see it in her face, that look like his dad got when he was suggesting something he allegedly wanted to do because he thought it was something that would be good for Stiles. Implausibly, she was worried about _him_ - this strange, visibly injured, visibly traumatized teenager who had wandered into her hospital room in the dead of the night.

He could easily understand why someone like Cody would do well under her care. That thought only served to make him feel awful all over again, however.

"I really don't think I should," Stiles whispered, passing the water bottle back and forth from one hand to the other with agitated rapidity. He knew he should just leave and wasn't sure why he didn't, other than the strong wish not to distress the woman and endanger her recovery any further than he possibly already had.

"I admit I'm probably not riveting company right now," the older woman said wryly, her voice still as painfully weak as sunlight filtered through heavy clouds. "But it helps to talk, sometimes, when you're in pain. I don't know about you, but the meds don't really cover it all for me," she added. Stiles got the vague feeling she was hinting at pain that went beyond the physical. She hadn't asked what happened to him, but it was fairly obvious he'd taken one hell of a beating.

He supposed that given her experiences with her adopted son and the nature of his own injuries, it was more than likely that Mrs. Wells was assuming that Stiles was also a victim of abuse. For once, he couldn't think of a single thing to say. The woman didn't even have the strength to sit up; she had no business concerning herself with anyone else. The idea of her in any way wanting to help himwas ironic and made Stiles feel guilty, like he was being a jerk just by not telling her why she really shouldn't waste her time. He somewhat stubbornly refused to feel sorry for Cody, who had made his own bed after all, but he found he did feel regret for how it impacted his mother, even if she did seem to be bearing up pretty well.

Not for the first time, Stiles wished they could have stopped the nogitsune sooner. _If only he'd not taken so long to figure it out. If only he'd been stronger. If only he'd never opened that goddamn door..._

"I have a son around your age," Diana Wells continued, filling the silence when Stiles didn't reply. "He goes to BHH. Do you go there? Maybe you've met." She seemed to be trying for neutral small talk to make her visitor more comfortable and clearly had no idea that it was having exactly the opposite effect.

Stiles felt ill. Cody was the last thing on earth he wanted to discuss with this woman. He turned away abruptly, disgusted with himself when he found his hands were shaking. He set the water bottle down before he could drop it. "I have to go." He limped quickly but carefully towards the door this time.

"Wait," Mrs. Wells called after him in confused concern, clearly not understanding what she'd done to set him running. "I'm sorry, if you don't want to talk about school..."

He just shook his head without turning. "No. No, it's fine. I just gotta go now. Look, I'm starting senior year and Cody's what, a sophomore? We wouldn't have had classes together, and unless he went out for lacrosse we'd probably never cross paths," he babbled, desperate to shrug her questions and leave. "So... yeah. I'm sorry, I have to go. I hope you feel better, okay?"

"I didn't tell you my son's name," the shocked whisper made Stiles freeze with his hand on the door handle, his shoulders tensing as he realized how badly he'd just fucked up. _Crap. _

"Wait, wait!" Mrs. Well's voice had changed dramatically from worried concern to urgent, desperate command. "You know something! Don't go! Please! What's happened to my son?! Please, you have to tell me; no one will tell me!"

Stiles pushed open the door to fell, but an agitated rustling sound and a short gasp of pain made him look over his shoulder. His eyes widened when he saw Mrs. Wells actually sitting part-way up and looking like she was thinking about trying to do something extremely stupid like get off the bed and go after him. She'd fall flat on her face and probably rip important tubes out of her body is what she'd do, _if _she made it that far. It was surprising that she could even sit, given how weak she'd appeared before. Her urgency seemed to be giving her the strength of desperation. Stiles quickly spun around and hurried back towards her in alarm.

"What are you doing?! Stop, stop! You're an anesthesiologist for God's sake; doesn't that mean you should know medical shit like to _not _go doing stupid stuff after major surgery?! Oh my God, lie down, lie down," he fussed urgently at her, horrified that he might yet be the death of this woman, no nogitsune needed. His hands jittered around in front of him as if wanting to push her back onto the pillows but too afraid of doing damage to actually touch her.

Mrs. Wells caught hold of his arm as she collapsed back against the pillows, but her weak grip was too light to hurt much. She panted for breath, face flushed, but eyes bright and intent with purpose as her gaze held him. She couldn't speak around her clearly urgent need to breathe, although she was trying.

Stiles gave her arm a reassuring squeeze and allowed himself to stay in her grip, his expression a mixture of resigned despair and concern. "Okay, okay, relax, all right? Just relax and catch your breath. I won't go anywhere, okay? So don't freak out. Please." He thought it was a little unfair to be held hostage this way, but what was he going to do? He'd sunk himself in deep this time and the only way out now was the difficult one. Given her reactions, he was quickly starting to suspect that despite what he had unconsciously been assuming, perhaps she had not yet been informed of what Cody had done. _Fantastic. _

He glanced with concern at the monitors to which the woman was hooked, trying to judge if her sudden exertion was going to bring anyone running to check on her, but although the machines were undoubtedly recording her increased heart rate, he saw no indication he could read that they were putting out any kind of alarm. That didn't make him feel much better though. One way or another, he was totally screwed.

"Just breathe, slow, okay? Slow... here, here, have some more water." Stiles fumbled the water bottle back to her. She tried to turn away but he looked so desperately at her that she finally conceded and took a few sips. "Please don't die, okay? You can't. You just can't, not now," he mumbled anxiously, not caring how much sense he was or wasn't making.

"You know me," Mrs. Wells finally murmured when she had enough of her voice back and her breathing had slowed to something manageable once more. "You know I'm an anesthesiologist, and you know Cody is my son. You seem familiar but I... I can't place you." She shook her head minutely in frustration. "Are you from the Granges? LaCosta? CPSCA?"

Those names weren't familiar and Stiles didn't know precisely what she meant, but supposed she was asking if he'd been in the same foster homes or institutions through which Cody had passed. He gave his head a little shake. He opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened and closed it again as he tried and failed to figure out where to start with the explanation he had no idea how to give. It didn't help that she was still looking at him so damn gently despite her urgency, like he was someone she might need to protect. That would change soon enough and he wasn't looking forward to it.

"I'm sorry," she rasped, still panting softly as she squeezed his injured hand weakly. "I didn't mean to scare you, but if you know something about what's going on with Cody... please, I need you to tell me. My sister tells me everything is fine and I should just rest, but I'm _sick_, not _stupid_. I know something is wrong. I know it. Cody hasn't been here once since I woke up and my sister is a _terrible_ liar." Mrs. Wells swallowed as if gathering courage. Her brows furrowed as she studied Stiles intensely, her impressions of his injuries and their possible causes clearly starting to shift, attempting with confused difficulty to re-arrange to something that fitted the only scenarios she could imagine. "Was he in an accident? Were you? Is that why..." she stopped, pressing her eyes shut for a moment before opening them again and fixing Stiles with an infinitely sad but even look. "How badly was he hurt?"

Stiles knew from the way she was bracing herself she was terrified that the news being withheld from her was that her son was dead. He shook his head quickly. "No, it's not... he's... um, okay?" he winced when it came out sounding like a question. "He's okay," he repeated with more surety. "I mean, he's alive and not like, hurt or at least not much I don't think. He wasn't in an accident or anything, so, that's good, I guess, but, yeah, he kind of can't be here right now. Stuff... happened... and I really shouldn't be the one telling you this, or, like, talking to you at all. Dad is _so _gonna kill me," Stiles groaned with feeling, sniffing and brushing his nose with the back of his hand as he often did when agitated.

"Is he the one who hurt you?" Mrs. Wells asked very quietly, her gaze was probative and it took Stiles a long moment to grasp what she meant and comprehend how she had misunderstood him.

"My dad? God no!" Stiles blurted like the very idea was offensively ridiculous, which, if you knew his dad it was, although he understood why she asked. "That's not how I... it wasn't him." He couldn't look at her, his injured fingers twisting and picking restlessly at the edge of the blanket closest to him.

"This," he gestured to himself ruefully. "This was... ah... it was Cody," he finally just said it. Much as he would have liked to lie, she would find out soon enough and he felt like he owed her the truth. It could hardly be helped at this point.

Mrs. Wells was staring at him in blank incomprehension. "What?"

Stiles sighed. "You're not the only one who thought I looked familiar. Cody kind of... got me mixed up with someone else too." Pacing up and down beside the bed, he told her an abbreviated version of what had happened. He did not sugarcoat what Cody had done to him, but he didn't exaggerate it either. He spoke of it in a kind of removed and abstracted way, almost as if it had happened to someone else.

Mrs. Wells was initially disbelieving, but shifted to resigned heartache swiftly enough that it was clear she was not blind to her adopted son's compulsive anger issues nor perhaps _completely_ shocked that he could have chosen such a reckless and violent path. To his great relief she did not accuse him of lying, nor did she try to make excuses to him for Cody's behavior. She simply listened. Stiles was sure she'd want to get corroborating information later and probably did not suppose that his side of the story was totally unbiased, but for now she just let him talk.

Stiles for his part tried to impart the information as carefully as he could, worried that the impact of it all could do her harm, but Mrs. Wells grew more composed rather than less the more he spoke. He got the feeling that she was the type of person who dealt better with known problems than uncertain possibilities. He could relate.

"I'm sorry," she said very quietly when he ran out of words and the silence started to stretch awkwardly. "Thank you for telling me. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for Cody did to you. I'm sorry he did it because of me, and I'm sorry for making you talk about it. If I'd known, I ... " she looked down. "I understand if you don't want to be around me, or answer any more questions about..." her face creased with pained concern. "I won't blame you if you don't want to tell me and you might not know, but... do you know where they took Cody?" she asked quietly, her gaze regretful and beseeching at the same time. "Does my sister know? Has she gotten him representation? They need to know he shouldn't be put in a cell with anyone else, or kept in the dark. He has anxiety attacks, he's terrified of being trapped in small dark places..." Mrs. Wells stopped talking again, appearing to have said more than she intended. "I'm sorry," she repeated quietly. "None of these are your problems. I just need to know where he is and I will get in touch with them myself."

Stiles realized she felt guilty for pressing him of all people for such information, but her concern for her son won out. She obviously didn't approve of what Cody had done, but was still very worried about him and Stiles couldn't fault her for that. Weirdly, it relieved him a little, although he couldn't have begun to explain why that should be.

"He's at the Sherriff's station," Stiles replied simply. Now that the most difficult parts of the story were behind him and Mrs. Wells had shown a frankly surprising disinclination to visibly hate him for his role in the whole affair, he felt no pain or hesitancy in discussing Cody's current situation.

Fear flickered behind the woman's eyes and it took Stiles a moment to realize why that information should distress her. Of course, he'd already told her that his father was the Sheriff.

"They'll take good care of him," he assured. "I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure Dad had somebody get in touch with your sister about getting representation and stuff. Cody's a minor, so Dad can't talk to him without a guardian and wouldn't put him in with anyone else in holding either. Don't think it ever gets completely dark in the holding cells 'cause of the need for surveillance, but I'll tell Dad about the dark thing and I'm sure they can figure something out," he promised easily.

Mrs. Wells looked at him quizzically, her brows furrowed. She appeared dubious of how much his father was going to be inclined to help her son under the circumstances, and Stiles supposed that was a natural enough reaction. Given who Stiles was, she had every reason to fear that Cody's jailers might be vindictive in his treatment. "Look, you don't know my dad, but he's a really good guy, okay? And a really good Sherriff. He's mad as spit about what happened to me, but he's not gonna take that out on Cody and he's not gonna let anyone else be mean to him either. He's not like that. I told him what Cody told me about his past, so, you know, he'll be careful. You don't have to worry," Stiles said earnestly, wanting both to put her mind at ease and to set the record straight about his dad, because people did not get to think ill of him ever.

Mrs. Well's expression was still puzzled and worried, but there was also a gentle warmth in her gaze as she looked up at him. She gave a small shake of her head, seeming honestly surprised by his words and assurances although Stiles couldn't understand why. It was the truth; his dad was a just man and she'd find that out eventually even if she didn't yet believe him.

"Thank you. You have a good heart, Stiles," she said quietly, her smile inexplicably soft and sad.

Stiles just shrugged and chose not to disabuse her of that peculiar notion. He knew he otherwise. If Cody had hurt anyone in the pack other than himself... well, suffice it to say he wouldn't have been so willing to pass on information about his phobias. Stiles was quite capable of being vindictive when the situation warranted. Even in this situation, the truth was he _wanted _Cody to get sent away for what he'd done. Despite the sympathy he knew he should feel for the other boy's situation and how much of this was in a way his own fault, Stiles still wanted to see him punished. Naturally, he didn't want the other boy to be, like, _hurt_ or _traumatized_ or anything, but he would feel a lot better knowing the kid was somewhere where he couldn't hurt anyone again for a while. However, Mrs. Wells was very... _mom-ly_, for lack of a better word, and whatever he felt about Cody, he really wanted things to work out for her.

* * *

Stiles managed to get a few hours sleep when he finally returned to his room and was discharged from the hospital in the morning. His father came to pick him up and Stiles choose not to mention his nocturnal meeting with Mrs. Wells although he supposed it would probably come out eventually.

In the short term, however, Stiles' attention was wholly occupied with trying to survive the ride from the hospital to the station. He was well dosed up with pain meds which made it bearable - if only just - but it was surprising how much they didn't cover. Right now, Stiles was not understanding how anyone could get addicted to such things. He actually despised the muzzy-headedness they caused and was generally disappointed in the level of relief he was getting, although he supposed maybe there were different levels of pain killers and maybe they weren't giving him the ones everybody talked about or something. Or maybe he just didn't respond well to them, that was possible. They'd had to give him extra anesthetic at the dentist a couple years ago when he'd had a tooth filled and he had _still_felt too much of the procedure, even when they swore he shouldn't be able to. So maybe it was just him. Whatever it was, it sucked and he was exhausted by the end of the short ride and very grateful to get out of the car again.

He could have given his statement at the hospital, or from home, but Stiles wanted to go to the station to do it and he wanted to see Cody. His father only reluctantly acquiesced to both requests.

The statement Stiles gave was mostly truthful for once. Cody had surprised him at home and held him captive because he was in a highly emotional state and mistakenly believed Stiles had been involved in the attack on the hospital two months previous. Stiles hadn't, of course. He'd been with his friends Scott, Lydia and Kira that night, they would all swear to it. If questioned, both Derek Hale and Chris Argent would corroborate having seem them all together in different places at different key times that night. So that was that, and whatever Cody said wasn't going to hold much weight after what he'd done. If Stiles' pain meds had been working better he might have felt more sympathetic about that. As it was, he didn't.

"Don't even think of not pressing charges," the Sheriff warned as Stiles signed the statement.

Stiles gave him a wry grin. "I didn't want Cody to _die, _Dad; I'm very all right with him getting justly deserved consequences for poor decision making and excessive torture-y-ness. Pain meds suck," he said dryly. He sobered a little. "But... he's gonna like, get help too, right? I mean, I want him to see somebody, like, therapy-wise. Can I request that? Is that thing I can do?"

The Sheriff patted his son's shoulder gently. "The prosecution will make sure that's a stipulation for however his case ends up handled," he assured. "I'm sure his lawyer will have no problem with that given the circumstances. They're almost certain to go with a defense based on mental and emotional distress."

Stiles nodded, but continued to chew his lip. "Maybe they could send him to, like, a treatment kind of place? Not Eichen house," he said quickly. "There's got to be better places. I just mean... I'd kind of like him to be somewhere he couldn't, uh, decided to go after anybody again for a while but... he's been really messed up, Dad. They won't put him somewhere he'll get hurt again, right?" He'd been thinking about that since his conversation with Mrs. Wells last night. He'd realized that getting sent to a normal juvenile detention facility could be seriously problematic and counter-productive for Cody given his history, and had started trying to think up alternative solutions.

John carded his fingers gently through his son's hair, pushing the lengthening locks away from the bandages on the side of his forehead. "I'll talk to the prosecutor, I'll make sure they understand his situation and his past and deal with him appropriately. I promise, all right?"

Stiles nodded trustingly, relieved to be able to place the whole thing in his father's hands because honestly, he was ready to be done with it all and start forgetting it had ever happened. Well... _almost _ready, that was. "Okay. Can I see him now?"

The Sherriff hesitated, then sighed. "Yes, if I can't talk you out of it, but only for a minute. This is off the record and he doesn't have council present, so don't discuss anything he did with him or his lawyer will have a fit. Come on."

Cody was huddled in the back of one of the open holding cells. He looked up when Stiles and the Sheriff entered, then quickly looked away again.

"Hey," Stiles greeted with a sardonic little wave.

Cody didn't look up.

"Oh come on, you tie a guy up in a shed and wail on him for eight hours or whatever, you can't just ignore him after that. It's like, a rule dude. Don't be a douche."

Cody fixed him with a confused look. "What do you want?"

"To talk to you, obviously," Stiles said, giving him a squint-eyed look like he thought the younger teen was being a bit slow.

"So? Talk," Cody mumbled with a bit more petulance than was probably prudent under the circumstances.

"Wow, you're sunshine and roses all the time, aren't you?" Stiles retorted dryly.

"What do you want me to say?" the other boy shot back. "You want me to say I'm sorry? Am I supposed to be all grateful and guilty because you saved my life or whatever? Well who asked you, huh? You're crazy, man. You may have everybody else fooled, but I know you're a total head case."

"Hey," the Sheriff said sharply, hand gripping tightly onto the bars nearest him. "I would check the attitude if I were you. You're in a deep enough hole as it is."

Stiles waved a hand at his dad, indicating it was okay. He gave Cody a shrug. "Isn't that a little pot and kettle? You are seriously one angry and kind of self-absorbed guy, you know that, Cody?" he remarked. "Look, I frankly don't care whether you're sorry or grateful or ready to dance a fandango. I think you're too knotted up inside to know what the hell you're feeling. I just came here to let you know that I truly did _not _hurt your mom or anybody at the hospital. If I were capable of that, I would have let you die too. I don't care how screwed up you are inside, you have to realize that. You're right, weird things happen in this town. I told you my explanation for it. You don't like that? Fine. Rationalize your own, but leave me out of it and maybe think things through a little next time, huh?" Stiles didn't want Cody spending whatever time there was ahead of him brooding on how to get more revenge. He really, really wanted to get off the kid's radar and focus him in less destructive directions. "Your mom is gonna need you, so you need to get your act together for her - _if_ you really care about anything other than yourself."

Cody laughed bitterly. "Like she's gonna want anything to do with me now."

"Oh bull _shit,_" Stiles said in exasperation. "You don't give her nearly enough credit. I talked to her a couple hours ago and God knows why, but she loves you, okay? She's not gonna abandon you now. She's your _mom._ So don't start with the pity party."

"Stiles!" John looked at his son in nearly equal exasperation at the news, reacting about as well as Stiles had expected.

"What?" Stiles looked at him innocently. "Got early morning munchies. I was looking for a vending machine and got a little lost. Stopped to ask directions. How was I to know that was her room?"

The Sheriff gave him a look that said he treated _that _explanation with all the credulity it deserved, which was exactly none. "She's recovering from very serious surgery, Stiles. This isn't how she should have found out," he said gravely. "Ms. Garston wasn't going to tell her yet."

"Yeah, which only made her worried and suspicious as heck. Dad, trust me, she was practically dragging herself out of bed to try and find out what was going on and where Cody was when I found her, okay? She thought he was _dead _or something. It's all right. She didn't get overexcited or anything, she was very calm. She's actually a pretty cool lady," he said approvingly.

John just shook his head. "_Don't _talk to her again without talking to me first, all right?" he warned.

Stiles nodded dismissively. "Yeah, yeah, legal stuff, I know. It's cool. We're cool, Dad, I swear." He turned back to Cody. "So, anyway, I just thought you should know that. She'll fight for you, so maybe you should try fighting for her just... in the _right _ways? In the ways she actually would _want_ you too? Ways that don't send you running off all half-cocked to _hurt _people. People like me," he kept going, as if his point might not be _quite _clear enough. "_Innocent _people like me. So. Yeah, that's all."

Cody said nothing, but Stiles didn't need him to. He'd said what he had to say could only hope that maybe in the future, whenever he got out, Cody wouldn't be quite so eager to go after people with tasers and handcuffs. Stiles turned to his father. "Can he go see his mom?" he asked. "After the lawyer stuff? She's not gonna be able to travel for a while and I know she really wants to see him."

The Sheriff didn't seem terribly surprised by the question, although he eyed Cody with some reluctance. "Given the circumstances, I think a short, supervised visit could be arranged," he allowed.

In his periphery vision, Stiles saw Cody scoot forward in his seat at the words, a jumbled mass of longing, pain and fear chasing across his features. He probably didn't entirely believe Stiles that Mrs. Wells wasn't going to throw him over after a mess like this, but he'd find out for himself eventually.

Stiles just nodded. "Okay, good." He turned to leave, tossing a parting wave towards the cell. "Bye Cody. FYI, if for some unlikely reason you ever need to get in touch with me again, _call_. Don't just show up at my door again like... _ever,_ because, uh, yeah, I'm liable to freak and hit you with something ... probably _repeatedly, _and that would just be awkward, 'kay?"

Stiles didn't wait for or expect an answer, but as he and his father walked away, he heard Cody's voice soft behind him, following him out.

"I'm sorry."

Stiles let his breath out as they left the holding area. It didn't really matter whether Cody regretted his actions or not. It didn't change what he'd done to Stiles, no more than Stiles' regret could undo any of his mistakes, much less those of others. Regret didn't change the past, but at least it might keep you from repeating it. That was what regret was good for, Stiles decided. Not something to wallow and get lost in, but rather a source of strength that reminded you exactly what you were never going to let happen again and why.

Despite a not insignificant residual amount of resentment for what Cody had done to him, he honestly hoped everything would work out for he and his mom. Whatever happened, he'd done everything he could. He'd paid his penance and he owed them nothing more. It was a surprisingly freeing feeling. Scott was right. He couldn't walk around feeling like he had to make amends for things he hadn't done. He'd known that for a while of course, but maybe it was finally starting to work itself through to his heart.

As soon as they were back out into the maze of hallways, Stiles' father stopped suddenly and hugged him. Stiles wasn't expecting it and flailed a little awkwardly before quickly stilling into the embrace with a quirked smile, patting his dad's back lightly. "Oh... okay, huggy huggy," he murmured in amusement, glancing at the man with a file box under one arm stopped a few feet away. "I, uh, I think we're blocking the hallway, Dad."

"Don't care," John whispered against his son's hair, holding him carefully so he touched none of his injuries. "Do you want me to take you home? I should take you home. I can..."

"Dad, no," Stiles drew away enough to smile at him and shake his head. "You're on duty and you've got a million things to do and like, only three people to do them. You said you called Scott, right? He'll take me home. It's fine. I'm _fine_," he promised.

"You don't have to be," the Sheriff touched his son's face gently, and the words took Stiles by surprise. "You don't have to be fine, for me," John clarified in response to Stiles' bewildered expression. "I know you're strong, son, trust me I know, but goddamn it, let me be a father sometimes. I can handle it. Trust me, okay?"

Stiles had absolutely _no _idea why his eyes were suddenly watering and he blinked and sniffed in surprise, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. He smiled, because it wasn't a bad feeling blurring his vision, not at all. It was a good kind of ache, even if he didn't know what to do with it. "Um. Okay. You... you know I do."

John cupped the back of his son's head lightly again. "Okay, then get out of here. You are going to go home and rest and do fun, normal, stupid things with Scott, all right? That's it. That's all you're going to do until the bandages come off, you hear me? No crazy junk, no detective work, no research, _nothing_. All crisis will just have to _wait,_" he said firmly as if decreeing it could make it so. It sounded like a pretty good plan to Stiles right now. "I'll be home by six. You have all your meds, right?"

Stiles nodded, jiggling the bottles of prescription painkillers and Adderall in his pocket to make them rattle. "Yup! I am fully prepared to go be a lazy bum, trust me. See you later!" he added as he gave his Dad's shoulder one more pat before turning and walking away.

Out in front of the station, Stiles was surprised to find not just Scott, but also Kira and Lydia waiting for him by Lydia's car. Lydia and Kira were in the front seats, Scott standing outside, leaning against the door and holding his motorcycle helmet.

"Uh, hey!" Stiles greeted. "What are you all doing here?"

Lydia raised an eyebrow at him through the open driver's side window. "We like hanging out at police stations. You meet the nicest people," she said with amusement.

"We came to pick you up," Scott explained more helpfully, if somewhat obviously.

"We thought we could grab some ice cream and do a Marvel marathon at your place! I got the new one" Kira put in brightly, leaning forward and waving a DVD case at him around Lydia's head.

"If that's cool?" Scott asked, playing his helmet between his hands and giving Stiles a questioning smile.

Stiles' answering smile tugged a little at his split lip, but it was broad and genuine. "Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great." He made his way a bit gingerly down the stairs and over to the car.

"Hey, what about my jeep?" he asked as the thought suddenly struck him. "Did Cody take it? He didn't mess it up, did he? It's not still out there, is it? If so, can we go and..."

Scott was already shaking his head with a wry smile. "Dude, relax, your jeep's fine. It was out near where we found you, keys still in the ignition. Kira and I picked it up last night. It's safe and sound waiting at home for you."

"Oh, good," Stiles looked relieved.

Scott reached to get the back door for him, and Stiles shot a quizzical look at the helmet in his friend's other hand. "You riding with us?"

"No, I've got my bike. I'll need to run out in a couple hours to pick up Isaac so he can come join us. Besides, we didn't want to put more than four people in the car so you'd have plenty of room," he explained.

"I put lots of pillows back there for you. We took my car because it has the smoothest ride," Lydia explained pragmatically from the front seat and Stiles felt his face heat up.

"Oh my God," he groaned as Scott pulled the door open, revealing an actually very comfortable looking nest of pale blue and lavender feather pillows. Stiles eased in carefully and he had to admit, it was actually a surprisingly comfortable arrangement for his sore body. Stiles _thought _he couldn't be any more embarrassed, until he'd settled in and suddenly registered the person on the other side of the pillow mountain with whom he was apparently sharing the back seat. Scott _had_ implied there were already three people in the car, after all.

"Guys, you really didn't have to... holy crap!" Stiles squeaked in surprise as he saw Derek wrestle back a lacy, powder blue pillow that was trying to slide over onto his lap. A startled burst of laughter caught through him at the sight of Derek being half smothered by Lydia's mountain of pillows as they became displaced by Stiles' entrance into the car. Derek raised an eyebrow and glowered at him, which, honestly, just made Stiles laugh harder. "Ow, ow, ow, stop it, stop..." Stiles gasped, curling over and hugging his aching ribs. "It hurts, oh, oh..."

"Stop what?" Derek looked consternated and confused.

"Y-your face," Stiles gasped. That just made Derek frown harder and Stiles clutched his stomach. "No, no, ow, stop! Not helping!" he wheezed in mirth, the combination of left over nerves, safety, relief and the combination of meds he was taking conspiring to make him a little loopy.

"Scott, how much medication is he on?" Derek asked dryly, leaning forward a little to see Scott through the doorway around Stiles' convulsing form.

Scott just shrugged at him with a smile and shut the door.

Lydia started up the car, Kira turned on the radio and they were rolling. Stiles floundered around a little in the pillow nest, attempting to adjust himself into the most comfortable position possible. This unintentionally resulted in more of the pillows flowing over onto Derek's portion of the seat, but he didn't seem to mind, stoically shoving them back at Stiles whenever they came too far over.

Stiles eyed him sideways. "Are you really going to eat ice cream and watch movies with us?" he asked Derek a bit suspiciously. It wasn't that he didn't want him there, he found he actually really did; it was just... Derek didn't usually hang with them, not like that.

"Yes," was all Derek said.

"Is Scott blackmailing you or something?" Stiles pressed.

"Yes," Derek said again, but there was the hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth now.

"Good grief Stiles, Scott invited him and he agreed to come; you're so rude," Lydia chided from the front.

"We were all really worried about you," Kira said, turning in her seat to look back at him earnestly. "It's good to celebrate the little victories, right?"

"Yes, big celebrations, little victories, capital plan," Stiles nodded, sinking back into Lydia's luxurious pillow-mobile and thinking he might drown in down and that could be okay because _hot damn _he didn't hurt and it was _fantastic_.

It wasn't until they'd already picked up the ice cream - Scott and Kira ran in while the rest of them waited in the car - and were halfway to his house before Stiles finally realized he should be terribly suspicious about just _how_ _good_ he was feeling. The pain meds hadn't been working nearly this well all morning, although they did seem to be slowing his brain functions and deductive reasoning just fine.

He was wearing a short sleeved shirt and he'd wedged his bare forearm in between two pillows that were half sprawled up against Derek's side. Reaching over suddenly and snatching the top pillow off, Stiles confirmed his suspicion. The back of Derek's hand was resting lightly against his forearm, faint tendrils of black snaking between them.

Stiles pulled his arm away, eyebrows climbing in surprise. "Dude, did Scott make you ride with us so you could pain-drain me all the way home?" he asked, kind of offended on Derek's behalf although he knew Scott would only have meant the best. "I'm sorry, that wasn't cool. I'm fine, okay? Really, I'm fine."

Derek made a face at him like he was an idiot. "Scott didn't _ask, _I _offered,_" Derek clarified. "He was going to do it, but I told him he shouldn't risk it. He took too much from you yesterday. He's still learning where his limits are and he could push too far without knowing."

Stiles' eyes widened and he curled his arms inward, hugging himself and trying to pull further away from Derek. "Yeah, well, I don't need it okay? Just stop."

"Oh great, way to go _genius_," Lydia said to Derek with a sigh from the front seat. "Now you made him feel like he's hurting you and Scott if he lets you help him. Stiles, that's not what he meant. _Derek _just doesn't want to admit that he simply _wanted_ to help you because you're a friend who's hurting and that he fusses over both you _and_ Scott like a protective mother hen."

Stiles' eyebrows shot up and he glanced over at Derek who was studiously staring holes into the back of Lydia's seat.

"I have no idea what she's talking about," he growled, but a slow grin spread over Stiles' face anyway.

"Yeah, sure you don't," he agreed. When Derek's hand brushed his arm again, Stiles didn't pull away.

A few minutes later they pulled into the Stilinski driveway and piled out of the car. Derek and Kira each carried in an armload of pillows while Lydia helped Stiles in and Scott carried the ice cream. Lydia made another nest for Stiles on the couch and a little while later they were all sprawled comfortably around the living room, indulging in early afternoon ice cream as the opening sequence on the movie started.

Laying on his side on the couch, Stiles licked rocky road lazily off his spoon, glancing around at the others and then back at the TV screen. There had been a lot of pain in all their lives recently, but despite that, and despite everything that had just happened to him and the aches he was still dealing with... Stiles found that in this moment he felt utterly, and totally content. _Little victories, _Kira had said, and it was true. The ability to have moments like this, pure, sweet slices of simple joy, these were little victories in themselves, and they too, were worth celebrating.


End file.
